Blues boss Kieran McKenna says forward Omari Hutchinson will be out for a number of weeks with the groin injury which sidelined him for today’s 2-2 draw at Fulham.
The 21-year-old was ruled out of the game against the Cottagers at Craven Cottage and McKenna confirmed that it’s not a one-match issue.
"Weeks, yes,” he said at his post-match press conference. "It’s his groin. It was actually at the very start of training, the first session back after Chelsea. He put a helluva shift in at Arsenal and against Chelsea, so it’s an overuse injury, really.
"But they’re going to happen over the course of the season, especially with the output that Omari’s having to give at the moment.
"Disappointed to lose him today. Of course, it’s the FA Cup next weekend and we’ll recover him as quickly as we can.”
Hutchinson is far from the first player the Blues have lost to injury this season with Axel Tuanzebe (hamstring) and George Hirst (knee) both still working their way back after their second fitness issues of the campaign, while Chiedozie Ogbene is expected to miss all but the final knockings of the campaign having undergone achilles surgery.
Nathan Broadhead missed the start of the season with a hamstring injury and Jacob Greaves also missed a long spell with a similar issue, and on top of that skipper Sam Morsy and Liam Delap recently served suspensions for amassing five bookings.
Given those restrictions, McKenna says it’s been an impressive from his squad up to now. Although in 18th, the Blues are now only goal difference away from safety.
"It certainly has,” he said. "We don’t speak about the injuries too much, but we’ve missed important players all season and the Christmas games included, we missed Liam, we missed Samy with a suspension, we missed Omari and the group’s done ever so well, I have to say.
"We’ve had to make more changes at times than we would have wanted but everyone in the group is fighting, everyone’s pulling in the same direction, everyone is fighting for the team cause but also we’ve got lots and lots of players who are standing up on an individual level, which happens when you have a good group that are all fighting for a cause.
"Players have a chance to show themselves well individually as well and it’s a testament to the group.
"There’s still pretty much half the season to go. Of course, we’ll look back on the first half but really it’s about looking forward and hopefully we’ll have good availability for the second half of the season, hopefully we’ll make some good additions in January and keep trying to take on this really, really big challenge of trying to compete at this level.”