Blues manager Mick McCarthy says former Blackpool loanee Luke Varney has made a big impression since joining Town on loan in February. The 32-year-old, who has made four starts and four sub appearances, scored his first goal for Town in Monday’s 2-1 defeat at Huddersfield.
"If any one of them who has been in the building on loan has gone about it the right way, certainly Reg has," McCarthy said of Varney. "I think he’s been excellent.
"People have taken to him, other players have, he’s great around the place and I thought his performance, of all of us on Monday, was particularly good. He got his goal and I’ve been delighted with him.”
Varney was one of five loan players to feature against the Terriers. Asked whether that might be too many, the Town boss responded: "When you get beaten at Huddersfield it’s too many, isn’t it? If we’d have beaten them 3-0 and the loan players had scored, it would have been fantastic.
"We’ve had some really good loans at times and I think we have now. I don’t think it was anything to do with that at all, the fact that we didn’t perform particularly well.”
He says another of the loanees, Palace’s Jonny Williams, was fine after his 23-minute appearance from the bench at the John Smith's Stadium, his first competitive football since suffering his groin injury back in November.
"He came through all right, he was fine,” McCarthy continued. "He’s certainly getting fitter. He’s training harder and more.
"He had his little cameo appearance. He’s not ready to start, that’s for sure. It would be wrong anyway because the start of games can be so tough and close and brutal that there’s not a great deal of room and he thrives better when he’s got a bit of room. And he wouldn’t get through the game if he started.”
He says that although Jonny Parr is back in training after his hamstring problem, today’s match might come too soon for him: "He’s been out since the Bolton game. He’s only had two days' full training but he’s fit.”
Regarding Luke Hyam, who he believes is now unlikely to feature until the play-offs if at all this season due to his knee injury, he added: "It was nasty at the time because he fell and bent double on it and [Southampton’s Victor] Wanyama fell on him, so that was a fair old physical presence. He went off and he’s been injured ever since.
"He came back and he hit a ball with the outside of his foot and he felt it. And up to then he’d been great. It’s just one of those injuries. I’m not making it any more serious than it is.”