Town boss Kieran McKenna is hoping wideman Wes Burns will be back in training tomorrow having suffered a hamstring injury while away with Wales, while George Hirst trained yesterday and Christian Walton is making good progress but Janoi Donacien remains sidelined.
Burns was ruled out of Wales’ Euro 2024 qualifier with Latvia on Monday having suffered the niggle having come on as a sub in the friendly with South Korea.
"He’s not too bad,” McKenna said when asked about the 28-year-old’s fitness. "It was the right decision for him to be withdrawn but we’ve scanned him and there’s no major tear or anything like that. He’s recovered well and we’ll hopefully have him training tomorrow.”
McKenna says everyone else who was away on international duty has come back without a problem.
"We’re still waiting on Elkan [Baggott] but other than Elkan, Sam [Morsy] was the last one back in, he was back in today, so that’s been great,” he said.
"It’s been nice to see them come back in, nice to see them add to their international honours and coming back into a group that’s trained really well and prepared really well, makes it easier for them to slot back in. It’s been lovely to get the whole group or almost the whole group back together today.”
Hirst came off in the first half of the 3-2 victory over Cardiff with a recurrence of his adductor injury and McKenna is hopeful the former Owls striker will be fine to play some part against his former club.
"He’s recovered pretty well,” the Town manager said. "He trained yesterday with the group and will hopefully train tomorrow with the group. If he gets through that fine, we’re hopeful he’ll have some involvement tomorrow.
But Donacien still isn’t ready for a return having come off in the first half of the 1-0 win at QPR.
"Still got some ongoing issues with his adductors,” McKenna continued. "He’s making some progress but still some issues to be resolved, so he’s still working through his rehabilitation.”
Better news is that keeper Walton, who has been out since pre-season after suffering a plantar fascia tear, is closing in on a return.
"Christian is doing well,” the Blues boss said. "It was good to see this morning because he was outside on the grass in boots and gloves and diving around the goal and working really hard with [keeper-coach] Rene [Gilmartin] and feeling good.
"He’s getting closer, he’s not integrated into training with the full group yet, hopefully that will be over the next week or so and then we’ll start to build him back in the right way to be available for games as soon as possible.”