Town boss Kieran McKenna has revealed midfielder Dominic Ball could be in the squad which travels for Saturday’s game at Bolton Wanderers.
The 27-year-old, a summer signing following his release by QPR, has been out of action since November having undergone knee surgery.
Asked whether there was a chance of Ball or fellow midfielder Panutche Camara, who is returning after groin surgery, could be involved in tomorrow afternoon’s U21s match against Birmingham at Playford Road, McKenna said Ball could be involved with the senior side instead.
"Panutche, yes,” he said regarding the former Plymouth man, who also featured for the second string last week.
"Dominic Ball, discussions to be had this afternoon as to whether he’s in the matchday squad against Bolton or whether he stays behind to train or whether he stays behind to get some minutes in the U21s.
"He’s been working outside on the grass now for probably six weeks with the fitness coach. He’s joined in with the group over the last week and the rehabilitation coaches are doing a good job getting the players to a good level of fitness and conditioning whenever they do return to the group.
"We feel like they’re generally ready to come back into the squad pretty quickly, as we did with Sone [Aluko] and as we did with Lee Evans and Marcus Harness. They’ve all returned to the group well.
"Dominic’s in that category and it’s about picking the right time to reintroduce them to the squad and also considering we have really good competition for places.”
McKenna says there are no new injury problems in his squad but that with the game the third in eight days he will look at utilising his squad.
"As good as we could hope for, I could guess,” when asked about the fitness of his squad. "Of course, you’ve got the likes of Massimo [Luongo], who has had two starts now in quick succession and hadn’t started many before then, and Nathan Broadhead is probably in that category as well as someone who hasn’t started too many back-to-back games.
"But we feel and felt it was important to respect each game and I think Tuesday night was certainly in that category, so we wanted to keep the momentum in the group that has been starting more of the games.
"We managed to get some players off in both games, which is useful in terms of players not completing 90 minutes, but it’s certainly something we’ll have to consider going into this game, the fact that it’s our third game of the week.
"We’ve got a long travel and we’re playing against a team who are fresh and have had a week to prepare, so we’re going to have to factor freshness into the occasion alongside all the other things when selecting the team and the squad.”
McKenna says Leif Davis came through the 3-0 victory over Accrington despite having suffered a minor injury in the 4-0 win against Burton on Saturday.
"He had some soreness but it was just a knock,” he said. "So it wasn’t one where there was every really any big threat that he would do any damage or anything like that. He’s trained today and he feels fine.”
Tyreece John-Jules, who underwent hamstring surgery in November, is back with Town having rehabbed back at parent club Arsenal but is still a little way behind the likes of Ball and Camara.
"He has to return with the group training first of all,” McKenna said. "He’s still working with the rehabilitation coaches but we’re hoping he’ll train with the group fully next week.”