Pitman, Sears and Douglas Start Against Birmingham - Ipswich Town News
Brett Pitman, Freddie Sears and Jonathan Douglas return to the Blues starting line-up against Birmingham with top scorer Tom Lawrence and midfielder Emyr Huws both missing out.
Toumani Diagouraga drops to the bench, while Tommy Smith, who only arrived back from New Zealand duty yesterday afternoon, is also left out of the 18.
The Blues, with manager Mick McCarthy appearing to have gone back to his tried and trusted players from last season and earlier in this campaign, look set to switch to a 4-4-2 system with Jordan Spence and Jonas Knudsen the full-backs, skipper Luke Chambers and Christophe Berra the central defenders, Cole Skuse and Douglas at the centre of midfield with Grant Ward likely to be on the right and Freddie Sears on the left and Brett Pitman and David McGoldrick up front.
Town: Bialkowski, Spence, Chambers (c), Berra, Knudsen, Skuse, Douglas, Ward, Sears, McGoldrick, Pitman. Subs: Gerken, Taylor, Bru, Rowe, Diagouraga, Samuel.
Birmingham: Kuszczak, Nsue, Grounds, Robinson (c), Shotton, Kieftenbeld, Tesche, Gardner, Jutkiewicz, Davis, Bielik. Subs: Legzdins, Gleeson, Donaldson, Adams, Frei, Dacres-Cogley, Keita. Referee: Andy Madley (West Yorkshire).
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