Manager Mick McCarthy will be without strikers David McGoldrick and Aaron Mclean for Saturday’s home game against Hull City. McGoldrick’s 93-day loan from Nottingham Forest is up and Mclean is unavailable against his parent club, while midfielder Lee Martin and defender Reece Brown again look set to miss out due to illness.
McCarthy says the bug which saw Martin, Brown and Mclean miss the trip to Derby is still affecting the squad, although the trio are on the mend: "There’s still a bit of illness knocking around, they’re all getting over it.
"Lee Martin has trained today but that’s his first real training session, although he had a bit of a loosener yesterday with the physio. So, he’s not fully up to speed with it all. Reece Brown hasn’t trained, he’s been in, it’s really knocked him sideways.
"The irony of it is that Aaron Mclean has recovered from his illness but he can’t play. So, the one that is really fit is no good to me tomorrow.”
McCarthy says he always planned for McGoldrick’s absence in the final five games — although the 25-year-old is still training at the club with the Blues paying his wages until the end of the season — and is confident that the likes of Michael Chopra, Daryl Murphy, Frank Nouble and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas can score the goals to secure Town’s Championship status, which is likely to be only a few more points away.
The Blues boss is unlikely to stray too far from the side which beat Derby so dramatically last week. Keeper Scott Loach will be looking to take his personal record to five successive clean sheets, while the defence as a whole will be looking to make it six, which would be a new club record.
Richard Stearman will be a right-back, Aaron Cresswell on the left with Tommy Smith and Luke Chambers in the middle.
In the middle of midfield, McCarthy could look at whether to bring Guirane N’Daw in for Andy Drury, the Senegalese international having made an impact from the bench at Pride Park. Luke Hyam will continue in the other central role.
Martin seems unlikely to start given his illness, so Jay Tabb will continue on the left with skipper Carlos Edwards on the right.
Up front, McCarthy will have to decide between Daryl Murphy and Frank Nouble, while Chopra seems set to come in for McGoldrick with Jay Emmanuel-Thomas viewed as one of the striking alternatives from the bench.
Anthony Wordsworth could come back into the 18 for the first time since his back injury with his manager believing playing 90 minutes for the U21s earlier in the week will have benefited him: "He's missed a lot of football and the game on Monday was good for him and he's in the squad."
Josh Carson has returned from his loan spell at York having broken his foot and is out for the rest of the season, while Paul Taylor is also out for the remainder of the campaign as he continues his recovery from foot surgery.
The Blues boss says it’s no shock that Hull are currently second in the Championship on 74 points, three ahead of third-placed Watford and six behind leaders Cardiff given their manager: "I haven’t seen that much of them, I’ve seen a bit on TV.
"It doesn’t surprise me because they’ve got a good manager, who has had success wherever he has been.
"He’s been promoted out of the Championship before. He knows what he’s doing, he could have been at Wolves, he thought he was getting the Wolves job and didn’t.
"I was with him in the summer and he took Hull back in the Championship and Steve, like me, believes he’s more than capable of managing in the Premier League and that’s where he should be.
"He took that gamble of a Championship club and it looks like it’s going to pay off for him, although I hope we’re going to put a slight dent in it tomorrow."
Striker Matty Fryatt is likely to be back on the Hull bench after eight months out with an Achilles’ injury, while fellow frontmen Sone Aluko (Achilles’) and Gedo (foot) remain sidelined.
Central defender Jack Hobbs is considered 50/50, while former Blue and manager’s son Alex Bruce is out for the season with an Achilles’ injury. Midfielder David Meyler is back from a two-game suspension.
Aside from on-loan Hull striker Aaron Mclean, no current Blues player has featured for the Tigers.
Fulham keeper David Stockdale is on loan with Hull having been with the Blues on a similar basis last season, making 18 appearances. The Tigers are keen to make the move a permanent one at the end of the season.
Liam Rosenior was on loan with Town from Reading during 2009/10, while Bruce junior was at Portman Road between August 2006 and August 2010, making 123 starts and four sub appearances and scoring three times.
Hull’s other keeper, Swiss international Eldin Jakupović, was briefly on trial at Playford Road in the summer before joining the Tigers, who he had spent time with at the end of last season. Midfielder Stephen Quinn is the younger brother of former Blue Alan.
The Tigers' assistant manager is Keith Bertschin was a striker with the Blues between 1973 and 1977, famously scoring a goal with his first touch in senior football after coming on as a sub in a 2-1 away win at Arsenal in April 1976. He was a member of the 1975 FA Youth Cup-winning team.
Historically, Hull just have the edge on the Blues having won 12 of the games between the teams (11 in the league), while Town have been victorious eight times (eight) and a further 10 (10) matches have been draws.
In October at the KC Stadium, two late goals from substitute Nick Proschwitz saw the Tigers come from behind to beat the Blues 2-1. Town had led at half-time through Jay Emmanuel-Thomas but the home side had been the better team throughout.
Last time at Portman Road, in August 2011, Matty Fryatt’s second half goal was enough to give Hull a 1-0 league victory over the Blues.
Town had the better of a first period in which ex-Tiger Damien Delaney had hit the bar, but the visitors improved after the break with Fryatt making the most of a defensive lapse with 14 minutes remaining.
Saturday’s referee is Oliver Langford from the West Midlands, who has shown 57 yellow cards and four red in 34 games so far this season. Langford’s only previous Town match was the 2-0 defeat at Leeds in December in which he booked only former Blues skipper David Norris.
Squad from: Loach, Lee-Barrett, Stearman, Hewitt, Cresswell, Mings, Chambers, Smith, Kisnorbo, N’Daw, Drury, Hyam, Wordsworth, Tabb, Edwards, Martin, Emmanuel-Thomas, Murphy, Nouble, Chopra.