Jordan Spence, Grant Ward and Tommy Smith look set to miss Tuesday's Carabao Cup first round tie at Luton due to knocks and niggles suffered in Saturday’s 1-0 home win against Luton, while Joe Garner is undergoing treatment on his shoulder injury. Manager Mick McCarthy confirmed that David McGoldrick and Bersant Celina will start at Kenilworth Road and said new striker Martyn Waghorn will be available.
"Jordan Spence rocked his knee, he’s got some swelling on that,” the Blues boss said. "Wardy has a really bad kick on his calf, it was big Ndoye who kicked him, so he’ll stay kicked for a while, I would imagine. But it was nothing nasty, just competing for the ball.
"Tommy Smith is just stiff in and around his back, so they’re real doubts and probably won’t be involved and we’re just looking after Joe Garner with his shoulder. We don’t want that to be any problem, so he’s having a bit of treatment on that. But we’ve got Waggy in, so that gives us a bit more help in that department.”
Will Spence, Ward and Smith be OK for the weekend trip to Barnsley? "I hope so, Wardy’s got a real bad calf, he’s limping around, but by Saturday I’m sure they will. But they are genuine knocks, couldn’t play.”
Has Waghorn been given the OK to play at Luton? "We're waiting for international clearance but he was registered in time, I’m told.”
Tom Adeyemi remains sidelined having been unwell during pre-season: "I thought he would have [been available] but he’s just felt it, he’s been out a long time and he was really ill. He’s just still recovering, he’s not ready yet.”
Emyr Huws also remains sidelined: "He’s still having treatment. There’s no time frame I can give you, they can just keep flaring up.
"Everything you do, just walking around, driving the car, everything you do put a real force through your achilles and your calf and they do take a long time to heal. They’ve got to be right, it’s one of those things of the job, you have to accept it, you can’t change it.”
Luke Hyam (ankle) and Teddy Bishop (groin) will also miss out, while McCarthy says Danny Rowe was absent from Saturday’s squad also having been unwell.
"He’d been poorly and he came in on Thursday morning after he’d been off and he looked great, he was shaved, hair done, looked smart, said he was fine,” McCarthy recalled.
"I said ‘You can just train with the physios and we’ll see’. And he was knackered, he realised that if he wanted to be involved in the team he had to be in on Thursday and training and he came in and put his best bib and tucker on and looked the part but when he started running he didn’t.
"He wasn’t ready for it, he was unlucky which was a bit sad for him because he’ll have to work hard if we don’t play with wingers because that’s his slot. But we might not always play that way, it might be 4-3-3 it might be 4-4-2, so he might just have to be patient if we play with wing-backs.”
McCarthy would give little away regarding his team, including whethe Dean Gerken would start in goal, but confirmed that McGoldrick and Celina, who will be making his debut for the Blues, will be in the side: "Didzy’s going to play, that’s pretty obvious, I would have thought, and I want to give Bersant Celina a game.”