Blues boss Paul Jewell says he wants to add another central defender to his squad due to the number of injuries his centre-halves have suffered this season. Ibrahima Sonko is currently sidelined with a hamstring tear, while Damien Delaney recently underwent surgery on a stress fracture to his foot and Ãvar Ingimarsson missed much of August and September with a thigh problem.
As a consequence, Jewell says he’ll be looking for other options: "I think centre-half is an area where we’ve suffered a bit with injuries - Ãvar, Sonko and Damien.
"It’s a key area centre-half. When we had that good run we had Sonko and Danny Collins, who were solid, but we haven’t had that since Sonko came off against Millwall.
"When Sonko and Danny were there they were looking solid and we had a base to build on. In the last couple of games we haven’t had that and it’s an area that I have been looking at and where we are looking to try and improve.”
With Collins returning to Stoke after his loan spell in mid-December while Delaney will still be sidelined, the Blues boss could look at adding a loan player as cover prior to the deadline on Thursday 24th November.
Meanwhile, assistant manager Chris Hutchings says Town have been working on alternatives to the diamond formation in training and hints at a change of system at the City Ground at the weekend: "The diamond midfield has worked well for us in games but you've always got to have a Plan B and that's what we've been working on this week.
"You've always got to have other options and you will have to wait and see how we set up at Forest on Saturday!"
During the second half against Doncaster Lee Martin and Josh Carson were employed as wide midfielders, while the Blues could look to return to the five-man midfield with which they started the season and which Jewell employed for most of his games in charge during the last campaign.