Town boss Kieran McKenna says it’s not impossible that striker Kieffer Moore could have some involvement in Saturday’s East Anglian derby at Carrow Road, despite suffering a severe back spasm in Monday’s 3-2 victory over Southampton, while there is still some illness in the camp and winger Wes Burns is set to undergo his second scan today.
Moore, 31, limped off in the 36th minute of Monday’s dramatic defeat of the Saints, which took the Blues back to the top of the table.
"It was a pretty severe back spasm, he’s not been able to play any part with the team thus far or do any activity thus far,” McKenna said.
"Knowing Kieffer and with the personality that he has, he hasn’t given up on some involvement, so it’s not impossible but at the moment we’d say it was doubtful.”
The Blues boss says the problem isn’t a significant one: "It’s nothing we think is long term, so we’ve got two games next week after this one, so we would hope for some involvement in those two.”
Regarding Burns, who suffered a hamstring injury in the 6-0 defeat of Sheffield Wednesday, McKenna said: "He’s having his second scan today, actually, so we should know a little bit more and should hopefully be able to update in the early part of next week.
"In terms of how he’s feeling, he’s feeling better. He hasn’t progressed to any sort of level of work yet, so we’ll see how the scan goes.”
In terms of replacements for Moore, McKenna says George Hirst isn’t yet ready for involvement having recently returned to the grass following hamstring surgery.
"Too soon for George and we’ve got a couple of others from Monday, to be honest, who haven’t been able to train and are doubts,” he said.
"There’s still illness in the camp as well, so it’s been a challenge the period since Easter over the last two games.
"But the group keep producing the right response and that’s what I trust they’ll do over the next couple of days and next week as well.”
Leif Davis was among those suffering with illness last week and was visibly unwell during the 1-0 win at Blackburn, but made a remarkable recovery to lay on Jeremy Sarmiento’s last-gasp winner against Southampton.
"He’s one of a lot of the players in the group who have had either flus or chest infections over the last week or so, but that’s the time of year and there’s plenty of it in the country as well,” McKenna said.
"He recovered well after Blackburn. I still don’t think he’s feeling 100 per cent but he recovered well, he’s shown a good level of physical robustness this season especially, to repeat the games and to perform from a physical point of view how he is is a credit to him and we’re going to need him for the next six games, hopefully as well.”