Town boss Roy Keane says he will field another young side when West Brom come to Portman Road for Wednesday’s Carling Cup quarter-final. The Blues have almost an entire team injured, ineligible or suspended.
Keane said: "We’ll have to go with a young team once again, which I’ve not be pleased about over the last month or two because we’ve played too many youngsters at the same time.
"But we don’t really have a choice tomorrow night as a lot of players are cup-tied, Damien Delaney’s suspended, Márton Fülöp’s struggling with an ankle injury and Gareth McAuley and Mark Kennedy are not available, so we’ll just have to go with the younger boys. It’s not ideal, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”
In addition to Fülöp, a doubt with an ankle injury, McAuley (achilles, January) and Kennedy (hamstring, fortnight), Connor Wickham (thigh) is out for another week and Luke Hyam for another fortnight with a hamstring problem. Alan Quinn is not yet ready for a first team return after his groin injury.
Better news is that Tom Eastman should be available after his groin injury, while young midfielder Jamie Griffiths is also a doubt after receiving a bang on the leg in training.
Loanees Rory Fallon, Jake Livermore, Jack Colback and Gianni Zuiverloon are all unavailable having played in the competition for their parent clubs earleir in the season.
Darren O’Dea’s girlfriend is still to give birth to their first child and the on-loan Celtic man could be called away to Scotland between now and Wednesday’s game.
The likes of Jaime Peters and Andros Townsend could return to the starting line-up, while Ronan Murray, Reggie Lambe and Troy Brown are contention for inclusion. Keane has confirmed that Argentinian midfielder Luciano Civelli will again be in his 18, having been in the Blues squad for the first time in 20 months at Norwich on Sunday.
Academy midfielder Caolan Lavery’s knee injury, sustained in the FA Youth Cup defeat to Peterborough last week, is worse than expected and the Northern Irish U21 international will be out of action for six to eight weeks.