Town boss Roy Keane is says he will be unable to field any of the club’s loan players when the Blues travel to Chelsea for the FA Cup third round tie next Sunday. Striker Rory Fallon has already played for Plymouth in the competition and permission hasn’t been granted by Jack Colback, Darren O’Dea and Jake Livermore’s parent clubs.
Keane said: "None of them are available to play in the cup next week. On top of that we’ve lost Shane and Murph to injury and Gianni’s gone back to West Brom.
"Do we take a risk on Gareth McAuley in the cup match and miss him for a league match? David Norris last year came back from an injury and we threw him back in after being out for four months, but to be fair, he didn’t have four or five months left on his contract then.
"Do we ask Gareth McAuley to take a chance, a player whose contract’s up in a few months?
"Will players whose contracts are up want to take that risk when they’ll have something lined up, which I’m pretty sure they will in January if their agents are any good. David Norris and Gareth are important leaders for us, they are issues which have to be dealt with.”
The Blues boss has used his youngsters when short of more senior players throughout the season, but says even some of them are on the way back from injuries at the present time: "We could go down the road of playing all the young players at Chelsea with some of them, like Connor Wickham and Luke Hyam, just off the treatment table.”
In addition to Gianni Zuiverloon’s return to West Brom, Keane says Sunderland are considering whether to recall Jack Colback: "I had a conversation with Steve Bruce [on Thursday] morning and he’s got a decision to make over Jack.
"These loan players mightn’t be with us in two or three weeks and that would be another disaster if any of them went back, but the clubs have the right to do that.
"At least if they are your own players you can dictate what’s going on with them. It’s an important period coming up and on top of that some tough games.”
Keane feels loans have a role to play even if the Blues are currently being hit by recalls and lack of cup availability: "There are lots of pluses with the loan system, we’ve used it very well, it was important to us last season, as are the players we have now. But then it can upset you like Wednesday when a player gets called back.
"The clubs have the right to do that, but that’s the downside of having loan players and we have decisions to be made over the next few weeks. We certainly need our own players, that’s the problem we have.”
Keane says he has spoken to one player who feels he doesn’t want another loan move at this point in his career, something which the Town boss says he can understand: "As much as I appreciate it’s good for a player to go out on loan, sometimes a player wants to draw a line under that as well.
"I spoke to a player the other day and he was saying ‘I’ve got loan offers, it’s not a loan offer I’m after, I want to go somewhere where I can settle for a year or two and become a footballer’. So don’t think loan deals appeal to all players, and I understand that.
"A player said to me this morning, not in so many words, ‘You either put up or shut up, I want something a bit more permanent or I’m going back because I know there’s someone else who will take me permanently’.”