Town boss Roy Keane says defender Darren O’Dea is 50/50 to make tomorrow’s home game against QPR. The on-loan Celtic man hurt the same knee at Portsmouth that he damaged while away on international duty with the Republic of Ireland.
Keane said: "He’s 50/50 as last week. It’s not from the injury he got last week, it’s from the kick he got when he missed the chance and he collided with the post.
"You’re always a bit more wary when it’s a loan player, you have to be respectful to the club that he’s coming from. He’ll be very doubtful.”
The Blues boss says he has various alternative options: "Mark Kennedy could come in, although it’s not ideal, we could do with him having a run-out for the reserves on Wednesday. Tom Eastman could come in, Damien Delaney could come in at centre-half, Tommy Smith could go to left-back. We’ve got plenty of options.”
A weekend newspaper report linked West Brom left-back Joe Mattock with a loan move to Portman Road, but Keane says that’s not the area of the squad he’s looking to strengthen: "We’re not in for any defenders. We’re fine in terms of numbers for defenders. We’ve got Troy, Tom Eastman. As usual, the reports were 100% wrong!
"I think we’ve been linked with another number of players over the weekend, all of them completely wrong!”
Keane says there has been no progress on his loan target: "Not really no. I think we’re respectful of the club’s position and we’re OK at the moment. We would like someone to come in to give us competition in one area of the club, as simple as that.
"Everyone seems to be making a song and dance about it and second guessing who the player is. We’re relaxed, if the deal happens it does, if not, we’re coping OK, we’re getting players back from injury, we’ve got some good young players, so we’re OK.”
Keane reported no other injuries from Saturday’s game and says that the likes of Damien Delaney, Connor Wickham, Mark Kennedy and Luciano Civelli will feature in the reserves at Colchester on Wednesday if they don’t play a significant part against QPR.