Town boss Paul Lambert says he’ll give central defensive pair Luke Chambers and James Collins until Saturday to prove their fitness for Sunday’s East Anglian derby against Norwich City at Carrow Road, while youngster Jack Lankester will be out for longer than first anticipated with his back injury having suffered a stress fracture.
Skipper Chambers and Collins missed Saturday’s 1-0 home defeat to Sheffield Wednesday with foot and hamstring problems respectively.
"We’ll see where they are, we’ve still got another few days,” Lambert said. "We’ll just give the lads every bit of time we can to see if they’re going to be fit and I’ll make judgement on that probably on Saturday.
"We need to know by Saturday, that’ll probably be the cut-off point where we have to decide whether they’re going to make it or not.
"The lads [Matthew Pennington and Toto Nsiala] did well [in their absence], you couldn’t have asked any more from them. We’ll see how they are, we’ll see how James and Luke are.”
Regarding the rest of his squad, he added: "Everybody’s not too bad. Again, there’s still another few days but I’m too long in the game to know that anything can happen in the next few days.”
However, Emyr Huws won’t make the trip as he continues his recovery from his long-term knee injury having suffered a minor setback - fluid on his calf - last month.
"Emyr’s not ready,” Lambert added. "He’s doing OK, but he’s not quite ready for this.”
Lankester, who recently turned 19, will be out for a few more weeks with his back problem: "He’s got a little stress fracture in his back, so he’s going to be out for a little bit.
"But he’s growing and his body’s developing and he’ll be better for it. He’ll be ready to come back when he’s ready. A real big talented footballer.”
It’s obviously not what I want to be out with a back injury , but I’ll be doing my very best to be out there as soon as possible #itfc 💙 🚜
— Jack Lankester (@lankester_jack) February 8, 2019
One of the positives from the Owls match was Teddy Bishop’s performance, the midfielder having made a rare start.
"He did well Bish, really, really well.,” the Town manager added. "Again, a young player who was doing really well. As I say every week, the young kids here, we had five in the squad last week, which is great for the club.
"Bish hasn’t played many games and he had cramp in both calves. He’s trained all week, he’s fine, it’s just whether we start him or bring him on so he can make an impact.
‘We’ve just got to watch him, he hadn’t played for over 14 months or something like that, so it’s a dangerous time to keep playing and playing and playing him, all of a sudden you lose him again. But his performance last week, especially the first half, I thought he was very good.”