Blues boss Roy Keane has warned his players to focus on their upcoming league games and not to start dreaming about the cup ties against Arsenal and Chelsea. Town, now 18th in the Championship, travel to Coventry on New Year’s Day and Nottingham Forest are at Portman Road on Monday prior to the FA Cup third round game at Stamford Bridge which is followed by the two-legged Carling Cup semi-final with the Gunners.
Keane said: "They’re nice little things for the players to look forward to, but the danger is that if you starting thinking about those games, you’ll get an injury. We just have to focus on the next game.
"It’s an important period for the club — can we bring players in, can we keep players, can we give Arsenal a game, can we give Chelsea a game. On paper we should have no chance, particularly over two legs.
"There’s always a chance of a cup shock over one game, particularly if you’re at home and conditions are for you, and even then you mightn’t win.
"The downside is that the semi-finals are over two legs. You might catch one of the big boys on an off-night but over two legs is [very hard].
"It’s great for our players and for our supporters to travel down to these great stadiums to play against these teams and we’ll find a lot out about our players.”
Keane says key defender Gareth McAuley could be in contention for a return early in the new year after undergoing achilles surgery, but probably not in time for the cup ties: "Gareth’s making good progress and he’s chomping at the bit to get back. It certainly won’t be late January unless he has a setback in the next few weeks.
"We’re happy enough with Gareth’s progress but it might be harsh throwing him back in for the cup games. That might test his achilles straight away!
"If he’s back involved, that would be fantastic in terms of being in the training group with us. We might be forced to throw him back in if something happened to Tommy, Darren or Damo, but let’s not predict who might be fit over the next few weeks.”
Meanwhile, defender Mark Kennedy has revealed that midfielder Alan Quinn is making progress having been sidelined with a groin injury since pre-season. The 31-year-old, who recently spent time back in Ireland after a bereavement, was given an injection earlier this month, having picked up the problem in the friendly at Leiston in July.
Kennedy said: "It would be wrong of me to say where he is in his fitness, but he’s been [training] outside in the last few days, so fingers crossed he’s finally on the full road to recovery.”