Blues boss Mick McCarthy says Town are continuing to take care over midfielder Teddy Bishop’s recovery with the 19-year-old yet to feature for the first team this season.
Bishop has been out of senior action since pre-season due to problems with shin splints - which also hampered him at the end of last season - and then a hamstring injury.
The Cambridge-born youngster played for the U21s at Birmingham in mid-September, then in the home game against Crystal Palace at the end of October but hasn’t been involved since then.
"He’s had the best possible treatment that anybody could get,” McCarthy said. "Our physio Matt Byard’s excellent and we use all the best specialists and people if they need treatment, we get very well treated here.
"He’s not the first that’s had a frustrating injury, it’s just one of those things which keeps breaking down. But we’ll get him right, he’ll be fine.”
He added: "It’s his hamstring, we just want to be careful with that. I’m no doctor but he got shin splints and when you’re carrying them around, you’re not running properly and not being fully at it, can’t get fit, can’t train every day because of your shin splints. I don’t have to be a doctor to know that.
"Your fitness goes down and then you’re asked to go full tilt in a game and suddenly you have a sore hamstring.
"You have a gradual degradation of your fitness, of your strength, of your playing ability just because you can’t train.
"We have to train at full tilt every day to play the way we play and if you can’t it’s hard then to get up to that match speed. So, he hurt his hamstring and we’ve just got to make sure it’s OK.”
The Town boss says players learn how to deal with fitness problems as they gain experience.
"You’ve had injuries if you’re 29 or 30, you know how to deal with them, you know how to get over them, you know that that’s only a little niggle and that you can play with that or ‘Actually, my hamstring’s tight, I need to pull out of training’.
"And I think for poor old Bish he got to the state where it’s a bit like you hate to keep missing games and you hate to keep missing training because it’s embarrassing. I’ve been there.
"You want to go out and play and sometimes you’re not really fit to do it. I’m not saying he’s done that, but you’re forever carrying something, so we’re giving him the best possible chance.”
McCarthy hopes he’ll have Bishop and David McGoldrick, who has been out for the last three weeks with a groin problem, as well Ryan Fraser, who is closing in on his return after his knee ligament injury, back available sooner rather than later.
"We’ve a lot of games to play, fingers crossed we get him back for the second half of the season, before that but certainly for that,” the Blues manager said.
"And Didzy, who has had a torrid time with injuries over the last couple of seasons in the latter half of the season. So maybe it’s his time to come back in the second half and rip it up as he’s ripped it up in the first half of the last two.”
Meanwhile, the Annual General Meeting of the Ipswich Town PLC, which owns 12.5 per cent of the club and consists of the shareholding prior to Marcus Evans's takeover, takes place this evening.
Elsewhere, Simon Milton will be at Coaching for Hope’s Football For Good Awards where he is shortlisted for the Player Impact Award.