Town boss Paul Lambert says skipper Luke Chambers will be fine to face Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park on Saturday, although will wear strapping on the wrist injury he suffered in last weekend’s 1-0 victory over Rotherham, while young striker Ben Folami is out for the season having torn an achilles tendon.
Lambert says there are no new injuries to those involved against the Millers last weekend: "We’re not too bad, the squad from last weekend. We’re not in bad shape.”
Regarding Chambers, who hurt his wrist when toppling over a perimeter gate during the first half of last week’s game, he added: "He’s OK. I’ve never known Luke to miss anything.
"We gave him a couple of days off at the beginning of the week and he’s back training, so he’ll be OK. He might need to wear a wee strapping thing on his wrist but that won’t stop him.”
Debutant and man of the match James Collins is also OK after his first 90 minutes since May last year.
"He’s fine, we’re just managing through this week,” the Blues manager continued. "He was outstanding this week, that was apparent for everybody to see and he’s fine.”
Will Town have to manage the veteran Welshman with games coming thick and fast in the Championship? "He’s 35 years of age, even if James had been playing week in, week out prior to coming to us, your body can’t do what it could do when you were 25, that’s just the nature of football.
"You manage him. He knows how to manage himself as well, which is important. I think you’ve got to do that in management, you’ve got to know what makes people tick and what doesn’t and James is a really, really experienced player who has played at the highest level for most of his career. I don’t have a problem with that.”
Midfielder Emyr Huws was back in the 18 last week for the first time in 13 months with Lambert planning to drip-feed the 25-year-old back into the side.
"He’s been fine and hopefully he’ll have no setbacks and it’s just a matter of him training and sustaining it,” he said
"I saw him playing a long, long time ago when he was at Manchester City, so I knew of him [before I came here], he was only a young kid at that time.
"He then went to try and get his career going. I’ve always liked him as a footballer, I think he’s a really good footballer."
Another midfielder Tom Adeyemi, 27, remains on the sidelines but Lambert says the midfielder is making progress after an achilles problem which required surgery.
"He’s doing all right Tom,” he added. "It’s nearly 15 months he’s been out, a helluva, helluva long time.
"Tom is still a way a bit away, he’s still got to go through all the rigours of training and getting fit.
"You can’t just throw him in because he’s come out of the physio room and think he’s totally fit, it won’t work, he’ll probably break down again. So he has to go through the rigours of training before he gets to us.”
Grant Ward underwent surgery on his ruptured cruciate knee ligament yesterday and now faces a nine-month recovery period.
Thanks for the love people, Op went well, road to recovery starts now! ðŸ™â¤ï¸ pic.twitter.com/LZX4H53LbW– Grant Ward (@GrantWard_) January 16, 2019
"It’s going to be another long-term one, he’ll have good days and bad days with it,” Lambert said.
"It’s a bad, bad injury that one but these days modern medics can sort it out and hopefully he’ll be back before too long.”
Also going under the knife this week was Australian U19 international Ben Folami, who tore an achilles in Monday’s 1-0 U23s victory at Cardiff.
"Long-term again, it’s incredible, his achilles’ heel has snapped so he’s going to have to get his head down,” the Town manager continued.
"There’ll be some times when they come in here and it’s tough to rehab. That’s normal when you’re out for that length of time.
"But Ben’s young, he’ll come back strong from it. That’s another nine or 10 months, you don’t get short injuries here.”
Might the 19-year-old have been in line to go out on loan, a possible switch to Notts County having broken down in the summer?
"I might have done, I’m not sure,” Lambert reflected. "He was doing OK. But again, somebody’s got to want to take them. He’s only a young kid learning his trade. I’d have had to look at that.”