Town boss Kieran McKenna has no new injury worries ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup fourth round tie at home to Maidstone United, but defender Janoi Donacien is seeing a specialist today regarding his ongoing groin injury and Brandon Williams remains with parent club Manchester United.
"No new issues, so that’s a big positive. We go into it again with pretty healthy numbers,” McKenna said at his lunchtime press conference.
Donacien, 30, has been suffering with the groin issue since pre-season and last featured for the first team in the Carabao Cup tie against Fulham at the start of November.
"Still unavailable, he’s seeing a specialist today,” McKenna said regarding the St Lucia international.
"Unfortunately, it hasn’t progressed how we would have hoped, so that’s really disappointing for Janoi and for us.
"He’s seeing a specialist today in London, so we’ll find out what the outcome is from that.”
Full-back Brandon Williams has been back with parent club Manchester United for assessment for the last couple of weeks and remains at Old Trafford with a decision to be made on whether to continue his loan spell for the second half of the season.
"Not back yet, still with United,” McKenna said. "That will be a discussion and a decision to be made before the window closes next week.”
McKenna confirmed that his loan players all have permission to face Maidstone: "Jeremy [Sarmiento], of course, played for us in the last round, Omari [Hutchinson] played for us in the last round and Lewis Travis has got permission to play in this.”
The Blues boss says young striker Gerrard Buabo could also be involved having come on as a sub in the third-round tie at AFC Wimbledon but is being carefully monitored following a long spell out with a hamstring injury.
"It’s possible,” he said. "He’s still limited in his rehabilitation, to be fair. He played 45 minutes for the U21s, which is the maximum that they felt comfortable for him to do so far.
"So he is still very much in the rebuilding process, but it is a possibility that he will be involved in the squad.”