Town boss Paul Jewell has confirmed that US U20 international keeper Cody Cropper will be on the bench for the first time when the Blues take on Northampton in the first round of the Carling Cup on Tuesday (KO 7.45pm). Arran Lee-Barrett is the only available senior keeper available and will start, with first choice David Stockdale on England duty and in any case ineligible for the Carling Cup and with Márton Fülöp having joined West Brom.
Jewell says the 18-year-old academy second year, who recently signed his first professional contract, has impressed him: "Arran will be starting and Cody Cropper’s done well, he’s made decent progress and he will be on the bench.”
The Blues boss will make other changes to the team which won so impressively at Bristol City at the weekend: "We will be an opportunity for some players who haven’t played a lot of football in a competitive arena. It will be a good opportunity for them.
"Northampton certainly won’t be easy and we won’t be taking them lightly at all. We know it’s going to be tough.
"I think it’s an opportunity to give players who haven’t played a lot of football a competitive game against a team which will be desperate to come to Portman Road to get a result.”
In addition to Stockdale, Josh Carson misses Tuesday's game because he's with the Northern Irish U21s, Tamás Priskin is with Hungary's senior squad and Damien Delaney has an ankle injury and has been withdrawn from Republic of Ireland duty.
Jewell says he was pleased by the 3-0 victory at Ashton Gate but believes there’s plenty of work still to be done: "There’s no getting away from it, the result was terrific, the performance at times was a bit patchy, but we’re a new team, we had six new players starting on Saturday, so things are going to take a bit of time to bed in.
"Whether we’d won or lost, we weren’t going to get carried away either way. We were pleased with the result, no doubt about it. It was great for the supporters who were there and we enjoyed it. But it was back to work the next day and looking forward to tomorrow’s game.”
The Town manager says there’s nothing new on his move to recruit Blackburn midfielder Keith Andrews on loan and another unnamed player, but hopes to make the signings before the weekend: "It’s ongoing and I’m hoping that by the end of the week we’ll have one if not two people in.”
Jewell dismissed claims that Nottingham Forest had made an offer for striker Tamás Priskin but refused to be drawn on this morning’s link with Liverpool central defender Daniel Ayala: "We could be here all day talking about speculation.
"I don’t want to be evasive, if I do something I want to do it quietly and when we do something you’ll get to know but I don’t want to do business through the papers because I don’t think it’s the right way.
"Some things get out, some are true, some are not and I don’t really want to comment on that one way or another.”