Boss Mick McCarthy is delighted that key pair Daryl Murphy and Cole Skuse should be back from their injuries for Saturday’s game away against fellow play-off challengers Cardiff City.
Skuse has missed the last five games with a toe ligament injury, while Murphy has been sidelined for two matches with a calf problem, but the Blues manager expects them both to be OK to face the Bluebirds, who are seventh, one place above Town - who have a game in hand - on goal difference alone.
"It’s great to be able to call on Cole Skuse and Daryl Murphy,” McCarthy said. "They’ve been virtually ever present in the team, they’re two very, very good players for us.
"If they are available, which I think they will be, they should train with us on Friday, then that’ll be a real bonus for all of us.
"No disrespect to anybody else because they’ve been picked on merit, week in, week out for the last two or three seasons. And if they’re fit, they’d expect to play.”
He says the pair won’t have lost too much fitness due to their time out and says it may actually benefit them in the final weeks of the season.
"At this stage, the lads keep themselves really well and if they’re injured they’re not just injured and not doing anything, they’ve been doing their rehab,” he added.
"I would say Skusey has got as fit as anybody and has endurance in him, and so does Murph.
"In a strange way it might be that a break gives them a chance to finish the season on a high and full of running. Let’s hope it does.”
Given the two lengthy trips this week and then the back-to-back home games against Blackburn and Rotherham, McCarthy says he’ll be looking to freshen up his side.
"Yes, absolutely. It’s not been easy because we’ve had so many injuries but we’ve got three games in quick succession on the back of a bonkers long trip to Bolton and back.
"We were back here at 10 to four and we’ve got a similar trip now to Cardiff. If I can get fresh legs in the team I will.”
McCarthy says on-loan Arsenal youngster Ainsley Maitland-Niles is fine, despite conceding the late, late penalty which saw the Blues drop two points at Bolton.
"He seems all right this morning, he’s trained fine,” the Blues boss added. "There are no recriminations from any of us because we’ve all made mistakes, me more than anybody because I’m older than all of them, so I’ve made a lot more than they have. And they, we have just got to get on with it.
"My philosophical view of it, the older I get, is that if I’d been asked before we went to Huddersfield, ‘Mick, would you take being one point off the play-offs with a game in hand after the Bolton game but you’ll concede a 96th minute equaliser to a penalty’, would I have taken it? Damn right I’d have taken it.
"And that’s where we are. I look at the last three games, we could have lost all those three.
"At Huddersfield we could have been way behind and we won 1-0. Forest started well and we played well against Forest, but we won 1-0.
"It irks me that we were 2-0 up at Bolton and we didn’t win the points but fair’s fair, they deserved at least a point and whinging about what you haven’t got is just completely wasted energy rather than looking at what we have got and we might achieve if we win our game in hand and get something on Saturday.”
The late equaliser wasn’t the first the Blues have conceded this season, but McCarthy doesn’t believe Town have a particular problem with letting in last-gasp goals.
"I thought we let our guard down for the first goal,” he added. "I think we’d scored and it was a bit like we were just taking a breath and they got one back.
"I don’t think there’s any issue that you can counteract. I look back at our season, Sheffield Wednesday scored and we scored within in a minute. We’ve scored I don’t know how many last minute winners.
"It happens in the game and I would imagine Derby are having an inquest [after losing 2-0 at QPR], Cardiff are having an inquest, they battered Leeds and lost 2-0. The league is seriously competitive and you can never gauge what’s going to happen.”
McCarthy has been impressed by what he’s seen of the Bluebirds: "They beat Brighton 4-1 which is an unbelievable result considering how Brighton have been going, although I think they defended badly that day, they got caught out and the goalie made a couple of ricks, I thought, and they took advantage.
"But apparently the goalkeeper kept Leeds in it the other night and they’ve nicked it. As we know, that happens.
"They’re a good side, Cardiff. Whether losing at home and knowing that we’re coming down will put them on the back foot a bit, I don’t know, but if it does we’ll try and take advantage of it.
"There’s always the pressure on the home team, it’s the same when we’ve got somebody coming here, suddenly we’re expected to win. It’s, ‘You should win, you’re at home’ and all those things that go with it. We’ve got to travel there.
"Nothing is guaranteed in this league. All I’d like to guarantee is that we play well and if we play well then we’ve got a chance of beating anybody.”
Despite still having a number of players from their season in the Premier League, McCarthy says it’s not been plain sailing for the Welshmen since their relegation in May 2014.
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"I think it was hard for Cardiff, they’ve had such an upheaval and I think Russell Slade’s done an unbelievable job to get them to where they are now, to get some stability and they look like a really competitive team that have got a chance of getting in the play-offs. I think Russell’s done a great job there.”
Bartosz Bialkowski will continue in goal with skipper Luke Chambers and Jonas Knudsen the full-backs and Christophe Berra and Tommy Smith the centre-halves.
In midfield, Skuse is likely to come back into the centre with Kevin Foley perhaps dropping out having started the last two games. Luke Hyam will be vying with Jonathan Douglas for the other role in the middle with Ben Pringle on the left and Kevin Bru probably on the right.
Up front, Murphy could take Brett Pitman's place with Freddie Sears starting alongside the Irish international.
Cardiff will be without Fabio after he was sent off against Leeds, while fellow right-back Lee Peltier is a doubt with a foot injury and centre-half Matthew Connolly may move across to cover.
Fellow central defender Sean Morrison could make his first start after returning from a knee ligament injury he suffered in December.
Town, who could be back in the top six on Saturday if they win and results elsewhere go their way, have the upper hand historically, winning 21 (19 in the league), drawing 13 (13) and losing 12 (11).
Cardiff’s loss to Leeds in midweek was their first defeat at home for 14 league games, while Town have been beaten only once at the Cardiff City Stadium, the 3-1 reverse last season, since the Welsh side moved home. Prior to that Town’s last loss on Bluebirds soil was at Ninian Park in November 2007.
At Portman Road in October, Town’s winless league run stretched to seven games as the Blues drew 0-0 with Cardiff City.
Murphy went closest to breaking the deadlock in the first half when Bluebirds keeper David Marshall tipped his header from a Kevin Bru corner against the woodwork.
Last time at the Cardiff City Stadium, in October last year, the Blues’ undefeated run was halted at eight games as Cardiff came from a goal down to win 3-1.
Murphy put Town ahead with a brilliant strike in the 29th minute, Peter Whittingham equalised with a similarly special effort on 37, before Federico Macheda netted two minutes after the break and Adam Le Fondre added the third on 69.
Cardiff midfielder Stuart O’Keefe was an academy schoolboy with Town, while the Bluebirds' Icelandic midfielder Aron Gunnarsson had a trial with the Blues' youth set-up when also a schoolboy.
Bluebirds central defender Semi Ajayi, who is back with his parent club after a spell on loan at Crewe, was on trial with Town in January last year when he played a game for the U21s, coincidentally against Cardiff.
Blues centre-half Josh Yorwerth, who is currently on loan at Crawley, joined Town after being released by the Bluebirds in the summer following a trial at the end of last season.
Town U21s coach and former left-back Mark Kennedy joined the Blues from Cardiff in the summer of 2010 for £75,000. U18s coach Alan Lee was also with the Bluebirds before moving to Portman Road in January 2006 for £100,000.
Saturday’s referee is Andrew Madley from West Yorkshire, who has shown 97 yellow cards and three red in 32 games so far this season.
Madley’s most recent Town match was the 2-1 home victory over Wolves in November 2014 in which he booked Luke Chambers, Hyam and Bru as well as two visiting players.
In 2013/14 he took charge of the 1-1 home draw with Nottingham Forest and the 2-0 victory over Reading at Portman Road. The season prior to that he refereed his first Blues game, the 2-1 home defeat to Derby County, Paul Jewell’s last match in charge of Town.
Squad from: Bialkowski, Gerken, Chambers (c), Knudsen, Foley, Berra, Smith, Digby, Hyam, Douglas, Skuse, Tabb, Bru, Pringle, Maitland-Niles, Touré, Sears, Pitman, Murphy, Varney.