Centre-half Tommy Smith looks set to face 12 weeks on the sidelines due to surgery on the back problem which saw him miss Tuesday’s 1-0 win at Derby. Better news for the Blues is that Freddie Sears is OK after a groin strain kept him out of the trip to the iPro Stadium and Cole Skuse is over the illness bug which forced him off during the game against the Rams.
"Freddie’s all right, Freddie’s fit, he’s trained today, he’s no problem,” manager Mick McCarthy said.
"Tommy unfortunately has a problem with his back, with a disc and it looks like he’s going to require an operation to fix that.
"It’s going to be a lengthy one. He’ll get it done, we’ll get the best people doing it, it’ll probably be 12 weeks.
"We’re going to miss Tom, he came back and he was excellent in the games he played.
"It’s sad for him, but we’ve got Adam and Bez and Chambo still, so we’ve still got cover there.”
He added: "I think he’s had it before, it’s just centre-backs jumping and heading all the time, it’s a fairly long lever in the back and you end up with that.
"He just complained about it a few weeks ago, whether he’s had it before that I don’t know.
"And in the Reading game and it really started to bother him. He’s been and had it looked at and he’s got to have it sorted out.”
Regarding Skuse, who came off after 72 minutes of Tuesday’s game as he’d been suffering with flu symptoms on the morning of the match, McCarthy said: "Apparently his pulse went up to 50 when he was poorly!
"He’s remarkable. He’s trained today, he was ill and he’s had a couple of days, he’s trained and looks brand new, he’s great. Everybody else is fine, everybody’s fit.”