The broken wrist sustained by Town midfielder Alan Judge in the Republic of Ireland’s 1-1 draw in a Euro 2020 qualifier in Denmark on Friday will inevitably delay his start to pre-season training.
But Judge is still expected to have fully recovered in good time to train prior to the start of the League One campaign and be available for the opening fixture on August 3.
Manager Paul Lambert will meet up with his players in a fortnight’s time to commence their preparations for the new campaign that starts on August 3, but 30-year-old Judge was already due to start later because of his international commitments.
However, the broken wrist he suffered towards the end of Friday’s game in Copenhagen — after his 85th minute free-kick was headed in by Brighton’s Shane Duffy to earn Mick McCarthy’s men a valuable point — will not only rule him out of tonight’s group game against Gibraltar but further delay his start to the warm-up campaign.
Judge is undergoing surgery today and hoping to be at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin this evening to see his team-mates in action as they look to reinforce their position as group leaders.
Town physio Matt Byard said: "We are hoping his injury won’t have much impact on pre-season for Judgey. It’s likely that he will have to avoid contact for the first few weeks but we will see how it goes.”