Boss Roy Keane says he had hoped that both Connor Wickham and Gareth McAuley would play in Sunday’s East Anglian derby at Norwich until the pair were ruled out with injuries. Wickham played in the reserves friendly at Spurs to prepare himself for Sunday’s game but picked up a thigh injury, while a scan revealed that McAuley would require achilles surgery which will sideline him for two months.
Keane says the 17-year-old striker was very much in his thoughts to start at Carrow Road: "I was thinking about throwing Connor in on Sunday and then he picked up the injury. With the game on Sunday we thought he’d have time to recover from the full 90 at Spurs and then he goes and gets injured.
"The boy will be disappointed. As much as we can talk about missing out on him, I’m sure he’s getting frustrated himself, but he’s got to keep his head.
"He’s only 17 and I’ve worked with and played with young players before who go through a phase when they are 17 or 18 and pick up injury after injury because they’re still growing.
"We hope Connor doesn’t grow too much more, but the body’s still maturing, muscles are developing and he’s picked up this injury which looked a sore one. As soon as he did it we knew he’d be out for Sunday.”
The Town boss says the England U21 international has been unfortunate to pick up injuries to both ankles and now his thigh since pre-season: "When you’re a young player you need a bit of luck, you need a run of games, you need to avoid injury and Connor’s had none of those.
"I think he’s only played two or three full 90 minutes in six or seven months. At the Tottenham game the other day we were going to give him 90 minutes and he got injured after 65.
"He scored a good goal and looked a real threat, but it’s only two weeks he’s out for, let’s not get too down about it. But my concerns back in the summer were that if we lost senior players we would suffer and we have. It’s been one of those seasons where it’s been frustrating on that front.”
Keane says defensive linchpin Gareth McAuley had been pencilled in to make his return against the Canaries: "We were actually hoping Gareth might be involved after a week’s rest, but he had another scan on Monday and they operated on him pretty quickly.
"We’re looking at him being out for a couple of months, maybe a bit less. It’s a big blow to us, particularly when you consider we lost Darren O’Dea for six or seven weeks and we lost Damien Delaney for a couple of months at the start of the season.
"Luke Hyam’s out for five weeks, Connor Wickham at the start of the season, Connor a few weeks ago and again on Wednesday. It’s been stop-start for a lot of our players.
"Our plan was to have more of a settled squad and team, and of course we lost Steady and Jon Walters on top of that, so we’ve had to deal with a few setbacks. For us to lose Gareth for a couple of months is a big blow, but it’s a case of just getting on with it.”
The Town manager says the number of injuries to his key players this season has been a significant problem: "Every team will suffer injuries, I never thought for one minute we wouldn’t have that, but I think that the players we’ve lost are important players.
"I think what we’ve had is too many young players in our team and they’ve been depending on one another. I’ve no problem with playing the younger players, but in the Championship to be going in with four, five or six in a starting XI is hard going.
"In defence of the players they’ve rolled their sleeves up, but we need to do better than we did last weekend. It’s all well and good being solid, you’ve got to score and we need to be more of a goal threat and hopefully it’s a great opportunity for some of our players.”
The Blues boss says no one was targeted as a loan signing as cover for McAuley with Keane feeling the options he already has at the club — youngster Troy Brown along with the left-sided Damien Delaney and Darren O’Dea — were as good as any alternatives available elsewhere: "I don’t think there were centre-halves out there who were better than what we’ve got, although it’s a risk, I know that.”
Keane says the only loan move out that was on the cards before Thursday’s deadline was a potential switch for Shane O’Connor: "Shane had an opportunity to go out. I spoke to him on Thursday and he wanted to stay and I’ve no problem with that. We feel that some of our young players can go out to get some games.
"That was the only one really, Jack Ainsley’s at Histon and that was it. With the squad as it is at the moment, as much as we want players to go and get experience, we need to cover ourselves. Christmas will be a busy time, no doubt.”