Kane Vincent-Young and Danny Rowe are both making good progress as they recover from injury but won’t be ready to make the trip to Blackpool on Saturday, while manager Paul Lambert says one or two players have “little knocks” ahead of the visit to Bloomfield Road and Jack Lankester is back out on the grass but is unlikely to feature this season.
Lambert says key midfielder Flynn Downes is fine despite appearing to suffer a groin problem during last week’s 1-0 defeat to Oxford United.
"I think he just slipped in the middle of the pitch, he’s OK,” he said. "There are one or two little knocks but we’ll assess them this morning to see how they are.”
Town will be without striker Kayden Jackson who will serve the first game of a three-match ban having been sent off last week.
Lambert explained why the Blues ultimately decided not to appeal his dismissal: "I don’t think we could have appealed because I think the footage wasn’t conclusive enough.
"You’ve really got to prove the referee was wrong and I couldn’t see enough on the footage to go against it.
"And I didn’t want to risk the rule of maybe getting another game on top of it. It would have been different if the game had been on TV or a Sky game and we had different angles but I couldn’t see whether it was intentional or unintentional.
"Kayden said it wasn’t but it’s word against word, you’ve got to have that evidence of footage.
"Kayden’s not that type of player, that’s the thing I don’t get, he’s not the type of player to go out of his way and stamp on somebody or hurt somebody.”
Lambert admits it’s frustrating to have Jackson missing for the games while his fellow joint-top scorer James Norwood, they have both scored 11 times this season, is also sidelined having undergone groin surgery.
"Yes, but his disappointment is somebody else’s good fortune to go and try and perform,” he said. "It’s a blow, James and Kayden being out, but it’s a chance for somebody else to go and perform.”
Quizzed on whether he might change his system due to the suspension, Lambert added: "We had a chat with the guys, we spoke to them and everybody just said ‘Put the ball in the net’, regardless whether that’s strikers, midfielders or defenders.
"The football they’ve been playing, they’ve enjoyed the football and when we’re on top like that, you’ve got to score.
"There’s not too much wrong with the way we’re playing, it’s just taking those chances, if anything comes to you, you’ve got to be more ruthless in that box.”
Regarding Vincent-Young, who is on the way back after his second groin operation, Lambert added: "He’s on the grass with Danny Rowe [who had minor knee surgery], the two of them are doing really well with the physios and the fitness guys.
"They’re doing really well, Kane is kicking balls as well. The good thing about Kane is that he’s a naturally fit lad. His game time will be down but he’s a naturally fit guy.
"Again, kicking the ball is a bonus because that was giving him problems but he’s in a good place, so we’ll just monitor him next week.”
Lankester has missed the whole season so far having required surgery on a stress fracture in his back.
"He’s doing well, what an injury that was as well,” Lambert said. "He’s doing alright, he’s on the grass, he’s out there but he’s not got any pain I think for the first time in a long, long while, which is great.
"I don’t think you’ll see Jack until next season in pre-season. But the pain’s not there, which is a massive, massive thing for him.”