Blues boss Paul Jewell returns to his old club Derby on Saturday with a fully fit squad but is considering changes as his side go into two games in three days. Town, who face Leicester at home on Monday, have only just ended their March run of eight matches, which the Blues manager felt was a lot to ask of his squad.
Jewell said: "We have had a really difficult month as far as games is concerned. It’s bordering on the ridiculous really to ask players to play Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday.
"When you do that the quality of the performance isn’t always good but I think our players have deserved credit because they’ve put an awful lot of work in and we’ve had some good results.
"It’s another test on Saturday. We’re travelling tomorrow, playing Saturday, training on Sunday and playing again on Monday.
"But in the old days you used to play Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Monday, so maybe they’ve got it easy now!”
The Town boss was pleased to have a rare chance to work with his players on the training ground this week: "I think at this stage of the season it’s almost ticking over. We gave them Monday off, gave them a rest, but for the rest of the week we’ve been in and they’ve looked sharp.
"It’s nice to have a bit of a breather without a game and to try and get some functional work into them, just reminders, rather than having no time for training because we’ve got matches. It is nice to have a bit of a free week.”
Despite a fully fit squad — "touch wood, no injuries” — Jewell says he expects to utilise some of his fringe players over the long weekend: "I think one or two have played an awful lot of football of late, but so have the rest of the division.
"I keep on saying after every game that I’m going to have to change the squad around and then I don’t because I like people who are in the team to want to stay in it. But on Saturday and Monday we might have to seriously look at maybe using the whole squad.”