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Blues Waiting on Internationals Ahead of Lincoln Replay - Ipswich Town News

Town assistant manager Stuart Taylor says the Blues staff are waiting for the players who have been away on international duty to return ahead of Wednesday’s FA Cup replay at Lincoln but with a number of them unlikely to be involved at Sincil Bank.

"They’ll all be back either the day before or on the day,” Taylor said. "I think young Ben [Folami, who has been away with the Australian U23s] has felt his groin a little bit so we need to find out how he is. Once he comes back in he’ll get in contact with the physios here.

"Judgey is fine, he’s involved in the game tonight, and Flynn and Andre have done very well, so we’ll wait to hear feedback from them.”

He added: "As soon as they come back in the country, they’ll be touching base with us after their games anyway as they’ve always done throughout their games when they’ve been away on international duty.

"We always keep in contact with them, so as soon as they arrive back in the country, they’ll be back to full duty.”

Downes and Dozzell will be in England U20s action against Iceland's U21s at Wycombe Wanderers’ Adams Park on Tuesday and Taylor says they will be ruled out if they play any significant part.

"Without giving too much away, certainly if they play even 45, 60 minutes then [they won’t be involved].

"You have to look at Saturday’s game and look at the bigger picture and look at what’s right for the lads, especially when they’re travelling back as well.”

Similarly Armando Dobra is likely to be in action with Albania’s U19s in their final European Championships qualifying mini-group game on Tuesday, coincidentally also against Iceland.

Meanwhile back at Playford Road, Taylor says there are no new injuries: "It was a full training system today where everybody was out on the grass, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

Asked whether the team which starts on Wednesday might be closer to Town’s regular League One side, he added: "There’s a lot of competition for places now, and that’s the pleasing and positive aspect to having these cup games is that we can get everybody up to or near enough equal amount of game time.

"So the positive to it is with Toto [Nsiala] coming back after a long-term injury, Emyr [Huws] has come back and played back-to-back games and we’ve had other lads as well come back and make up game time.

Janoi [Donacien]’s come back and went into back-to-back games, Myles [Kenlock] has come back from his spell out with back-to-back games, and that’s the positive to playing the cup games.

"So we’re over the moon and absolutely delighted with how everyone has come through in the last couple of games, and it’s got us all on an equal pegging of competition for places.”

One man who will have hoped to have been given his chance on Wednesday - especially as the match is against one of his former loan clubs - but is sidelined with injury is Jordan Roberts, the forward having suffered a toe problem in the Leasing.com Trophy tie against Gillingham.

Taylor says Roberts is making progress and returned to training last week: "He’s had his injections and had his treatments, and he was back on the grass towards the end of last week, so hopefully, he won’t be too far away.

"Jordan is naturally fit, and it wasn’t a muscle injury where we needed to rest it up and build it back up again, he could actually work and do stuff throughout his programme. He’ll come back quicker, and hopefully, he isn’t too far away.”

Taylor also confirmed that Will Keane was rested for Tuesday's Leasing.com Trophy tie at Colchester rather than having suffered a knock.

Asked whether there might be any 16-year-olds involved at Sincil Bank, Liam Gibbs and Tawanda Chirewa having made their debuts as late subs at Colchester, Taylor said: "I’m not too sure what the gaffer’s going to go with at this moment in time.

"But it doesn’t matter about age really. If they’re good enough, they’re old enough. Just like the other way as well, if they’re good enough, they’re young enough.

"It depends on the legs that they’ve got, age is just a figure. If they’re strong lads that can handle that, we wouldn’t put them in if they weren’t capable of doing it because that’s just wrong.

"People are in the team on merit and that’s the way that we always look at it.”

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