Boss Mick McCarthy says he is able to go back into the loan market if required with his squad having suffered a few early season injuries. Left-backs Aaron Cresswell (thigh) and Tyrone Mings (knee) will both miss tonight’s Capital One Cup tie at Stevenage, while midfielder Anthony Wordsworth is out with a calf injury.
McCarthy said: "We can do it if need be. I’m hoping that Cressy will be back on Saturday. We’re all right for the moment, but if we need to do it, we’ll do it.”
Wordsworth is back in training and Mings will be out for at least two weeks and McCarthy feels his squad would be stretched should too many more of his players pick up knocks: "I want to win this game and I’d like to get some of the injured players back because I do think if we’re relying on 16 or 18 players because of injuries [it'll be tough].
"We’ve got 22 players, two for every position and then we’ve got some of the kids. Whether they’re ready for it, who knows?
"If you get four or five of your main squad injured and you’re trying to compete at trying to get into the top six and trying to stay in the cup it gets difficult, but I want to win this game and see what happens.”
The Town boss says he’d ideally like to get some of his younger players out on loan to gain experience: "We’ve got 22 players and beneath that we’ve got Kyle Hammond, who I think has been exceptional, he’s been great in pre-season.
"And then there’s David October, Byron Lawrence, Amir Berkane, Jack Marriott, they’re really the five that have been pushing and are near it.
"If I got the chance to send them out on loan somewhere, I would. But it’s difficult for anybody to take them on loan at the moment, there have been no U21 games.
"Nobody’s really seen them and I guess when they start playing people will come and watch our U21 games and there’ll be some team from a lower league that might think they might do something with them, that’s when it will happen.”