Town boss Paul Cook has confirmed that Toto Nsiala and James Norwood will miss Saturday’s trip to Burton but says new signing Kyle Edwards will be in the squad which travels to train at St George's Park today and Hayden Coulson has trained for the last few days.
Nsiala suffered a hamstring injury in last Saturday’s 2-2 home draw with Morecambe and Norwood what appeared to be a similar problem in Tuesday’s 1-0 Carabao Cup defeat to Newport.
"No, they won’t be available for the weekend game,” Cook said at his pre-match press conference.
"One of the things, especially for pre-match interviews and everything else, I want to give you as much information as I can, but I’ve also got to be careful of how much I help the opposition in relation to preparing for us.
"Whilst I appreciate your questions and we need to be ask, the brutal reality is that it’s sometimes better if I could be a bit vague in replying to you.”
George Edmundson had a niggle when he joined the club from Rangers but had started training at the end of last week, although on Tuesday Cook said the centre-half was "still a week or two away”.
Asked to clarify how close the one-time Oldham man is to his Town debut, Cook added: "Again, I think the most important thing for us is just to discuss the game, if you understand what I’m saying.
"Obviously from Burton’s point of view they’ll be preparing for us, the last one thing [we] want is for me to tell them my team on a Friday morning.”
Winger Edwards was signed on a fee transfer from West Brom on Monday and Cook says the 23-year-old will be in the squad having been a player he had been targeting throughout the summer.
"He was a long-term pursuit Kyle, without a shadow of a doubt,” he said. "He’s very exciting and he’s a very grounded young man, a really nice young man and he’s also a very exciting footballer.
"And one that we won’t rush. I’m not a manager who wants to rush teams. You have this mentality around football where managers get judged after every game and if you don’t win it’s the end of the world.
"I don’t buy into that. We’re preparing a team that’s going to be put together. We won’t risk lads with injuries, we won’t risk lads if they’re not quite fit because the bigger picture for Ipswich Town will be a very positive one. Kyle’s in the squad tomorrow, he’s very much available for selection.
"We have picked our team, we’re going to prepare at St George’s Park today and then we’ll travel to Burton Albion with the strongest team we think we can put on the team to win the game.”
Cook himself is already at Burton having watched their Carabao Cup tie with Oxford on Wednesday which the Brewers eventually lost 4-2 on penalties having grabbed a last-minute leveller to end the match 1-1.
The squad will follow him up today to what he says are "brilliant” facilities at England’s National Football Centre.
"I’ve got to say, our preparation off the pitch has been excellent for every game,” he added. "The thoroughness of the performance department at the club has been good.
"Every player now is getting programmes and data about how they get better, about how they can physically get better and in a period of time that will lead to a better level of performance.
"If you’re fit and you’re tuned in and you’re tactically tuned in, then you’ve got a chance of being a good footballer.”
Hayden Coulson was the week’s second signing, on loan from Middlesbrough, and Cook says the left-back has trained but wouldn’t be drawn on whether he would be involved tomorrow.
"Again, we haven’t spoken about Hayden,” he said. "Hayden’s trained now for two or three days. He had a rough bout of Covid, so rather than debating all the players, I think when you’re speaking about Kyle Edwards, Hayden Coulson, Edmundson, Conor Chaplin, we’ve got a really exciting group of players coming together.
"As I say, fortunately or unfortunately, the quicker we can get them together, the quicker they can train together, the quicker they can get to know each other both on and off the pitch, then the reality is that’s when we’ll start putting our best foot forward.”
How close to new arrivals, we just keep going. There’s been so much change at the club. Last Saturday’s game was such a great occasion, especially with us equalising late on. It was really, really pleasing to get that goal so we didn’t lose.
"I thought the performance on Tuesday night was excellent, I’ve got to say that. I really felt we played well for long periods of the game, unfortunately we just couldn’t score goals, which was a bit of achilles heel last year.
"But is something as we speak presently I’m not so worried about. We have integrated new players into the system on Tuesday night, I think they’re picking up really well.
"We’ve obviously got Kyle Edwards in the squad tomorrow and people of that ilk coming in, so the reality is that we’re very much work-in-progress and every day we’re trying tog et better for tomorrow.”
This evening will be the first time the squad has been away together but Cook says there’ll be no time for socialising or team bonding at the hotel.
"Meal, bed, sleep!” he said. "It’s repetition in what we do. Like you explain to the players, it’s boring sometimes trying to be good and you’ve got to sacrifice and our sacrifices are very, very small.
"Preparation and details for matches now is very, very important and you’ve got to get everything right. Once you’ve done all the preparation, it’s over to the boys on a Saturday.
"If I watch the games like I’m an Ipswich fan, we’ve played two games and drawn one and lost one, but probably should have won both games, if truth be known.
"But that’s football. What we’ve got to do is concentrate on integrating the players in and getting that level of performance that will see us consistently knock on the door and hopefully consistently go through the door to win games.”