Town boss Mick McCarthy has revealed that David McGoldrick will be on the bus travelling to Wolves tomorrow for Saturday’s game at Molineux and he could be joined by midfielder Teddy Bishop, who has missed the entire season up to now. Kevin Bru is also expected to make the trip despite suffering a knock while away with Mauritius but Daryl Murphy has been ruled out.
Murphy suffered a calf injury during the Republic of Ireland’s 1-0 friendly victory over Switzerland and the Town boss confirmed he will miss the weekend game and is a doubt for the two home fixtures later in the week.
"He won’t be available on Saturday and we’ll see how he is for the two games after that, Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday,” McCarthy said. "At the moment we don’t know, but he’ll be missing on Saturday.
"We’ve had a few spanners thrown in along the way and it’s another challenge that we’ve got to overcome.
"Kevin Bru’s trained this morning, he’s done some work with Matt Byard the physio and Lids [fitness coach Andy Liddell] and they say he’s OK. We’ll see if there’s any reaction but if not he’ll be training and on the bus to Wolves.”
McCarthy confirmed that McGoldrick, out since mid-December with a hamstring injury, will be in the squad at Molineux and that he could be joined by Bishop, who has missed the whole season so far, also due to hamstring problems.
"The good news is that Didzy’s on the bus and there’s every chance that Bish will be there as well,” the Town boss enthused. "He’s trained with the squad this week, he trained on Monday and Tuesday, really intense sessions.
"He had his recovery day yesterday like all the others and he’s trained again today. He doesn’t feel anything, so that’s a real plus.
"Please don’t think straight away they’ll both be ready to start and play 90 minutes because that would be a huge ask.
"But they’re both quality players that we might be able to get sub appearances out of and that would be a bonus, having those two players going on.”
McCarthy didn’t entirely rule out McGoldrick starting but played down its likelihood.
"He’s had one U21 game and he’s been out for a long time,” he added. "It’s not manager-speak, it’s common sense, if you start a game and play for 60 minutes very often, especially in the Championship, it can be really tough and physical and turgid and horrible and scruffy and scrappy with not a lot of chances.
‘When you’ve got quality players on for 30 minutes and you know they’ve got quality and they’re not having to bust their guts to run around and chase it and harry it, that’s when chances come.
"And if you’ve got someone like Didz it would be more worthwhile to have him on when the game opens up and not having to do all that graft to get a foothold in the game.”
Meanwhile, McCarthy says winger Ryan Fraser is still with his parent club Bournemouth as he recovers from his hamstring injury.
"He won’t be on the bus on Friday or Monday, he’s not right yet. We’ve no timescale on that.”