Boss Mick McCarthy says he now doesn’t expect on-loan winger Ryan Fraser to rejoin the Blues before the end of the season, while striker Daryl Murphy will again be missing when Town face Brentford at Portman Road on Saturday.
Fraser suffered a hamstring injury in the QPR game in January and has been undergoing his rehab back with his parent club AFC Bournemouth.
"I don’t think there’s any chance [of seeing Ryan Fraser again this season] actually,” McCarthy said. "He had a setback before, so he’s not going to be available for Saturday, and probably not the Saturday after.
"I’m looking it from the perspective if I was his manager. If he keeps having a setback he’d have to come back here 100 per cent fit, no doubt about that.
"And if I’m thinking about next season for one of my own players, a player who will probably be as valuable as Ryan will be to Bournemouth next season, I wouldn’t be encouraging him too much to be going [back out].
"I don’t think Eddie is stopping him in any shape or form, so don’t anybody think that, he was very gracious with us and loaned him and we got Brett, we had a really good deal and he’s helped us all the time.
"But I’d want to make sure that my player was fit for me for the start of next season and not having [injury problems]. If Ryan came here and got injured again, he’d be in [for treatment] all pre-season, he’d have no rest time and he’d be getting fit.
"There are a lot of mitigating circumstances why he may not come back. If he’s fully fit, we’ll see him again, but there’s a doubt about that.”
He says he doesn’t expect the Scotland U21 international to return next season: "I haven’t broached it with [Eddie Howe] but he sent him out to get some experience and to play and to do the things that he’s done with us in this league, just gain that experience playing.
"They were watching him and they were delighted with him, so I don’t envisage that he’ll come back here.”
Regarding Murphy’s calf injury, McCarthy says the Republic of Ireland striker won’t be back until the Blues face his former loan club Sheffield Wednesday next Saturday.
"It’s looking more like Sheffield Wednesday, he’s not fit for this weekend,” the Town boss added.
"He had a scan at the start of the injury, he had a little tear, a little nick in it so I always said he was going to miss these three games which were coming thick and fast, and there’s been no surprises there. Hopefully he’ll be back for Sheffield Wednesday.
"Other than that, there are just little bumps and bruises but all the squad from Tuesday are fit.”
He says David McGoldrick and Teddy Bishop will have benefited from their run-outs on Tuesday but aren’t ready to start, but says he’ll look to freshen things up with the Blues playing their third game in a week.
"The games come thick and fast and it’s at the end of the season so everybody’s starting to feel it. There’s every chance there’ll be a few different faces.”
Meanwhile, McCarthy confirmed that, as reported by TWTD on Tuesday, West Ham striker Jordan Brown is on trial but says that so far his interest has gone no further than that: "We just had a look at him, we’ll see what happens.”
Brown featured for the U21s as they won 2-1 at Barnsley on Monday afternoon.