Borussia Mönchengladbach sporting director Roland Virkus says Town’s decision to field an U21s squad in this afternoon’s friendly between the clubs at the ATS Sportpark in Heimstetten is “incredibly disappointing” (KO 2.30pm CET, 1.30pm BST).
The Blues announced last night that it would be a young squad managed by John McGreal taking on Die Fohlen in this afternoon’s match, Town having been impacted by injuries during pre-season.
Keeper Cieran Slicker is the only player with any first team experience in the Blues’ XI, while Die Fohlen have named a very strong side.
"We’ve had a great training camp and were hoping to round the week off with a friendly against strong English opposition,” Virkus told his club social media.
"That Ipswich have now gone against our contractual agreement due to personnel issues is incredibly disappointing and has left us very frustrated.
"Unfortunately, we were unable to find an alternate friendly opponent at short notice, so we have no choice but to try and make the best out of the situation.”
Ideally, Blues boss Kieran McKenna would have liked to have fielded two separate senior XIs in the games against Borussia and then Hoffenheim on Saturday, but admitted at the weekend he was struggling for numbers with a number of players having picked up knocks.
"We hope so because the games are pretty close apart,” McKenna said when asked whether he planned to field different sides in the two matches following last Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Fortuna Düsseldorf at Portman Road.
"But we don’t have the bodies for that in terms of senior players at the moment, so we’re going to have to have a look at it and try and find the right balance between stretching and pushing the boys with minutes but not over-pushing them. In an ideal scenario we’d have two separate XIs to play the games.”
Town U21s: Slicker, Jambang, H Barbrook, Maionis (c), Ayoola, Turner, Valentine, Carr, Foyo, Roberts, Ayinde. Subs: Williamson, Okunowo, Nwabueze, O Davis, T Taylor, Onuchukwu, Babb, Morgan.
Borussia: Omlin, Itakura, Stöger, Weigl, Honorat, Kleindienst, Plea, Netz, Reitz, Scally, Elvedi.