Boss Mick McCarthy is remaining tight-lipped on whether Bartosz Bialkowski or Dean Gerken will start in goal for the Blues at AFC Bournemouth on Saturday. Town are largely free of injury, but McCarthy says on-loan Crystal Palace man Jonny Williams might have played the last game of his spell at Portman Road.
The Town manager confirmed that Gerken and midfielder Cole Skuse are fit after groin problems: "Both of them have trained this week and both are available for selection for Saturday.”
Regular first-choice Gerken keeper suffered his injury in the warm-up at Blackpool and summer signing Bialkowski has kept two clean sheets in three wins during his absence.
McCarthy says Williams, who suffered a groin injury in the 1-0 home victory over Watford a fortnight ago, has returned to the Eagles for treatment.
"Jonny was around the place but I spoke to Neil Warnock on Monday and he asked their physio to speak to Jonny,” McCarthy said.
"I discussed it with him, I think he wanted to have a look at him and now having seen him they want him to do the rehab there, which I understand. We all think we do the best job, and certainly for our own players we probably do.
"Whether that will take him to the end of his loan I don’t know, but they’ve got recall on him anyway and I think they need all hands to the pump.”
He added: "Four weeks might be to get him back training, then if he’s out for those four weeks it could take him two weeks to get him fully fit, bearing in mind Jonny’s had a number of injuries.
"He’s a tough little devil. He gets kicked from pillar to post and all his injuries seem to be really hefty knocks. I don’t know, but it’ll probably take him to the end of his loan and I think they’ll want to take a look at him themselves.”
Recent short-term signing Jack Collison - who is yet to make the matchday 18 - is the only other player sidelined at present, the former West Ham man having picked up a knee problem in the U21s recently.
Regarding Town’s international players, McCarthy says they’ve all come back without suffering knocks: "They’re all OK. Didz and Murph both played 75 minutes for Ireland came back OK.
"Christophe Berra didn’t play at all so I was really hoping he’d come back OK and he has, and Tommy Smith played two 90 minutes and he’s back and raring to go again.”
Luke Hyam is available again having been banned for the Watford game having picked up five bookings.