Town boss Roy Keane says he can see why striker Tamás Priskin frustrates some supporters, but feels the Hungarian deserves to be given a chance, the 24-year-old having scored his fourth goal of the season in Tuesday’s 3-1 Carling Cup victory over Northampton.
Keane said: "Tamás scored again and he scored an important goal at Millwall for us. I know he has his critics, but you have to give the boy a chance.
"I think he’s the type of player who can frustrate fans because of the way he sometimes runs and his body shape and because he will try stuff.
"Even against Northampton he was trying stuff on the edge of the box and that takes bravery, particularly from an attacking player. I thought he deserved his goal and he earned it with his workrate.”
The Blues boss was delighted for all three of Tuesday’s scorers: "I think the goals will do the three lads the world of good. We’re always expecting more goals from Carlos but when he scores they’re usually decent ones.
"Damien has been out for a long time, going back to his ankle injury at Forest last season and then his bad dead leg in pre-season.
"That will do Damo the world of good. In an ideal world I probably wouldn’t have wanted to have played Damo because we’ve asked him to put in a good shift over the last week or two.
"And Tamás, strikers obviously enjoy scoring goals. I’m pleased for the three individuals.”
Keane was less happy to lose Connor Wickham to an ankle injury suffered in training on Sunday, which will keep him out for a fortnight: "I’m disappointed because everyone was expecting Connor to be involved against Northampton, but that gives other boys an opportunity.
"However, it shows where we’re short. If any of our other attacking players had picked up an injury, if something had happened to Tamás or Jason, we would have been bringing on young Jamie Griffiths and we brought on Ronan Murray.
"That’s where we’re at. People think I’m all doom and gloom, but if you watched Cardiff the other night and saw their attacking options, we’ve a long way to go, which is why we have to keep our options open as regards bringing in another loan player.
"But I take my hat off to the players, I enjoy working with them, although we’ve a long way to go. I keep comparing us to the QPRs and the Cardiffs and we’re way behind these teams. People need to realise that and some don’t. But I’ll keep arguing my corner.”
The Blues boss says he is working on persuading owner Marcus Evans to release the funds to allow him to add the players he's after, both on loan and on a permanent basis when the transfer window reopens: "I think there’s a knack to that, it’s part of a manager’s job. We lost a lot of players over the summer, although we all appreciated that we had to tighten the squad up.
"I think we need some players but we need to be hanging in there [close to the play-off zone] until January, however January’s a long way away. I think everyone appreciates we’re short but when you start the season OK like we did, everyone thinks things are sweet, but they’re not."
Keane hints that the Blues may have missed out on potential loan targets: "We’ve seen Leicester and other clubs sign one or two players when we were probably sniffing round them, but there are often big, big loan fees and obviously the club has got to make financial decisions, and I agree with most of them.”
Meanwhile, Town will definitely face Premier League opposition in their quarter-final of the Carling Cup with Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Manchester United, West Ham, West Brom and Wigan the other sides in the hat when the draw takes place on Sky’s Soccer Saturday from 12.15pm.