Town boss Paul Jewell faces selection dilemmas ahead of Saturday’s home game against Doncaster Rovers with the Blues suffering from injuries and a loss of form. Ibrahima Sonko, Lee Bowyer and Damien Delaney are all out, while Nathan Ellington and Daryl Murphy are doubts.
Defensive linchpin Sonko has a hamstring problem and has also been struggling with tonsillitis, while Bowyer, a regular in the midfield diamond, has back and hamstring injuries. Defender Delaney, the man who replaced Sonko for the defeat to Crystal Palace, has a stress fracture of his foot.
Ellington has a calf strain and Murphy suffered a hamstring problem in the reserves in midweek and both are doubts.
Better news is that midfielder Keith Andrews is over the minor groin injury which led to the Irishman missing training earlier in the week, while left-back Aaron Cresswell is back from his one-match ban for his red card against Palace.
The former Tranmere man seems certain to come back into the side at left-back for Mark Kennedy with Ãvar Ingimarsson making only his second start for the Blues in place of Sonko at the centre of the defence alongside Danny Collins.
Reece Wabara’s impressive performance as a sub in last week’s 4-1 loss at Millwall could see the on-loan Manchester City man push Carlos Edwards for his place in the side at right-back, while David Stockdale will be in goal.
In midfield, Jewell will have to consider whether to continue with his diamond or opt for a more traditional four. The Blues boss hinted at a possible recall for previously forgotten man Colin Healy at his press conference on Thursday, which would see the Irishman as a straight replacement for Bowyer on the left. Jimmy Bullard, Keith Andrews and skipper Grant Leadbitter would fill their regular roles.
Should the Town manager switch to a flatter, wider four, Josh Carson would be the most likely replacement for Bowyer having impressed his manager in recent weeks. However, the diamond had served the Blues boss well up until the last couple of games and he may be reluctant to change his system.
Tamás Priskin could find himself back in Jewell's thoughts, with Ellington and Murphy likely to be ruled out due to their injuries, vying for a starting role up front with Michael Chopra along with Jason Scotland, who is without a goal in three games.
Tommy Smith may be back in the 16 as central defensive cover, the first time the New Zealand international will have been involved since the Peterborough match.
Blues boss Jewell watched Doncaster earlier in the week and was impressed, despite seeing them lose: "I saw them on Tuesday. They played Middlesbrough and for 35 minutes there was only one team in it, it was all Doncaster.
"They went 1-0 up through a wonderful [Billy Sharp] goal and could have gone a couple more ahead. Then from Middlesbrough’s first attack right on half-time, they conceded a goal and in the second half Middlesbrough were decent.
"Don’t kid yourself, although Doncaster are bottom of the league, they’re no mugs. When you see the results on Wednesday night you’ll see that there are no results in this league that you can call.”
He says Rovers' recent high profile additions have made a difference: "They’re a good team. They’ve got a bit more experience in the team with Pascal Chimbonda, El Hadji Diouf, Herita Ilunga and Neil Sullivan in goal.
"They play some good football, they’ve got some good players. They were a little bit unfortunate on the night, to be honest. Conceding just before half-time tends to happen when you’re down the bottom, as happened to them.
"They’ve got experience, they’ve got some good players and like any game in this division it’s going to be fiercely competitive.”
Sharp, who played on Tuesday despite the recent death of his new-born son Luey, is a player Town made a move for in the summer, Rovers turning down a £2.3 million offer for the former Sheffield United man along with a £300,000 bid for midfielder James Coppinger.
The Blues have been linked with the 25-year-old more recently but Jewell says he’s not keen on speaking about someone at another club: "I don’t think it’s right for me to talk about Billy Sharp or any other player. We are interested in bringing good players to our club.
"It’s been well documented that we made a bid for him and Coppinger in the summer. It didn’t happen, the club wouldn’t sell him.
"Billy Sharp is a player I admire, but there are plenty of players I admire right throughout the league and we’re always looking to try and improve our squad.”
Doncaster boss Dean Saunders says Town are capable of defeating anyone in the division: "They’ve got a lot of good players who have played in the Premier League, so it’s not going to be an easy game. If they all get it right on the day they can beat anyone.
"Ipswich manager Paul Jewell was my manager in my last year at Bradford. I know Paul and I know how he wants to play and we are going have a tough afternoon. But I am confident that we can go there and get something.”
Saunders, who took over from Sean O’Driscoll after his departure in September, believes he is making progress with the division’s bottom side: "I can see it all coming together. We had a really good first half on Tuesday - it was probably the best since I’ve been here - and we’ve got to try and extend that and stop conceding too many goals.”
The Welshman says the goals are more often down to his team rather than the opposition: "I don’t think it is about what they do. If you look at most of the goals that we are conceding they are our fault; they are nothing special.
"We need to tighten up and I will eventually get it right because all the teams that I’ve worked with ended up with a tight back four and keeping a lot of clean sheets, and I’ll end up getting it right.
"It’s just a case of getting the right players in the right positions and getting them to understand that they’ve got to work as a unit with the keeper.”
Midfielder Ryan Mason is out with an ankle injury, while Martin Woods is being rested due to a sore groin and striker Chris Brown has a knee problem.
James Chambers, John Oster, Paul Keegan and Adam Lockwood are longer term absentees.
In February, Connor Wickham hit his first senior hat-trick as Town continued their resurgence under then-new boss Paul Jewell with a 6-0 destruction of Doncaster at the Keepmoat Stadium, the Blues’ first ever win on Rovers turf.
Sam Hird’s 25th minute own goal set the Blues on their way with Wickham subsequently netting his three, the last a penalty, and Colin Healy and Gareth McAuley one each.
A month earlier, in Paul Jewell’s first home game in charge of Town, the Blues came from behind to gain their first victory over Doncaster since 1957.
The visitors went ahead in the first half through Sharp but David Norris and Connor Wickham put Town in front after the break, before Sharp equalised, only for Carlos Edwards’s deflected shot to take all three points.
Historically, that 6-0 win has given the Blues the edge, Town having won four games between the sides, four having been drawn and Doncaster having been victorious three times, one of those the only cup tie involving the clubs, Rovers’ 2-0 Carling Cup second round win at Belle Vue in September 2004.
Wembley play-off final hero Richard Naylor is the only former Blue in the Doncaster squad at present, although Sharp and Coppinger were summer targets, while Jay Emmanuel-Thomas scored five goals in 12 starts and two sub appearances while on loan at Doncaster between February and May 2010.
Perhaps notably, the official Rovers website reports that "Messrs Scotland, Chopra and Priskin share a particular penchant for scoring against Doncaster”.
Prior to the game, the Football League is holding a Family Football Festival in Alderman Park from 1pm, full details here.
This weekend's match programme is available in an online electronic version here as well as at the game.
Saturday’s referee is Simon Hooper from Wiltshire, who has shown 29 yellow and two red cards in 10 games so far this season. Hooper’s only previous Town match was the 1-1 draw at Plymouth in October 2009 in which he booked one player from each side and showed then-Pilgrims loanee Darcy Blake a straight red card for a two-footed lunge on Alan Quinn, who coincidentally was on trial at Doncaster in the summer.
Squad from: Stockdale, Lee-Barrett, Edwards, Wabara, Cresswell, Ingimarsson, Collins, Smith, Healy, Bullard, Andrews, Leadbitter, Carson, Martin, Emmanuel-Thomas, Chopra, Scotland, Ellington, Murphy, Priskin.