Blues left-back Greg Leigh is facing months on the sidelines after suffering a knock during last week’s 2-2 draw at Sheffield Wednesday, while striker Gassan Ahadme is a doubt ahead of Sunday’s live-on-Sky clash at Plymouth having been ill this week.
Leigh was due to join up with the Jamaica squad for their friendly against Argentina in New Jersey next Tuesday and would have been able to play for Town in the Papa Johns Trophy tie against Arsenal’s U21s on Tuesday but for the injury.
"We’ve had a couple of other issues to report,” manager Kieran McKenna said at his lunchtime press conference. "Greg Leigh unfortunately picked something up at the back end of the Sheffield Wednesday game that was initially thought to be some bone bruising and it was going to be touch and go whether he would make his internationals this week.
"There have been some scans on this this week just to make sure and unfortunately he’s got a compression fracture of his leg and he’s going to be out for a longer period of time.
"That’s a disappointing one for Greg and for us as well, so he’s going to have more of a lengthy spell on the sidelines.
"Apart from that we have Sone [Aluko, knee] and Panutche [Camara, groin] still returning from their injuries. Gassan has missed training this week with illness and it’s touch and go whether he’ll travel to Plymouth next week, we’ll have to see how he is over the next 24 hours.”
By a lengthy spell, are we talking weeks or months? "It’s more likely to be months. Hopefully not a long period of months, but that will depend on the healing and the bone over the next six weeks.
"So it’s very much a recover for six weeks, let the bone heal and after that it will be a check on how the bone has healed.
"But we’re hopeful that it will be a shorter period of months rather than a significant amount.”
Leigh’s injury is disappointing with the 27-year-old having been competing well with Leif Davis for the left-back/left wing-back role.
"They were, and the balance was what we hoped it would be with a young player coming in who has got high potential but hadn’t made many professional starts yet and hadn’t been in the league.
"And balancing that off with a more experienced player who had been in the league for a few different clubs and would be able to give us different qualities at different times, but also help and be a good teammate for the younger players.
"So, we had a really good balance there. I’m disappointed for Greg, of course. It was a good moment in his career and he was progressing internationally, obviously.
"Ipswich was a big step forward for him as well that he’d risen to. But it’s part and parcel of the game, and he understands that as well.
"We’ve been a little bit unlucky, if I can say, at the moment because that’s certainly Sone, Greg and Cameron [Burgess] with innocuous contact injuries that are hard to predict and hard to avoid, really. And that’s three major ones that we’ve picked up in the last month.
"So, it’s unfortunate for the squad in that respect, but that’s why we built a strong squad to hopefully deal with the rigours of a season.
"It came a bit quicker and more unexpectedly than we predicted, but we’re confident with what we have here.
"We have a good number of players, we have versatile players with quality and experience, and overall we’ve got a great hunger in the squad to do well and if you have that, I’m confident that we’ll find the right solutions for the games coming up.
Cameron Humphreys regularly played for Town’s U23s as a left-back last season, might the 18-year-old come into McKenna’s thoughts for that role during Leigh’s absence?
"It’s a possibility, that’s not one that we’ve looked at with him yet, all his football with me has been either as an eight or in the 10 positions behind the frontman and he’s been very capable in both of those,” he said.
"In terms of him playing as a left-back or a left wing-back, it’s a possibility for him. We have Kane Vincent-Young of course as well, who is very experienced and capable in that position.
"We have good options, good versatility in the squad, lots of players who can do the same role but bring different qualities to it, and I think that gives us the ability to be able to be flexible within games and plan as we want to plan and make sure that we have the attacking the defending balance that we want for each game.”