Town boss Kieran McKenna says it’s not impossible that Omari Hutchinson could be involved in the home games against Brighton & Hove Albion and Manchester City on Thursday and Sunday, the forward having suffered a groin injury in training shortly after the 2-0 victory over Chelsea.
Hutchinson, 21, missed the 2-2 draw at Fulham and Sunday’s 3-0 FA Cup victory over Bristol Rovers.
Asked whether the England U21 international has a chance of being in the squad against the Seagulls, McKenna said: "Not impossible, we have to make a judgement, he did some work on the grass today, so we’re really hopeful that we’ll see him at stages this week.
"But what that looks like and how many minutes across the games, we’ll have to assess and try and make the right judgement.”
McKenna has no new fitness issues from the game against the Pirates: "Nothing’s changed from Sunday, so it just leaves us with the injuries that we've had that we're still working on.”
That means the Blues are still without Conor Chaplin (knee) and Sammie Szmodics (ankle), who are expected to be out for a few more weeks, but better news was the return of George Hirst from the bench against Rovers following his knee problem.
"He’s been very unlucky, I have to say, and we’ve been unlucky to lose him,” McKenna said. "I think his impact off the bench in the games that he was available for was really good.
"I think the Brighton away game was a prime example. I think without him, where we were in the game when he came on, I’m not sure we go on to get the point.
"He had a really big part in swinging the momentum in that game away from home against Brighton, and he did that on a few occasions.
"He’s a valuable member of the squad, he knows his role, he knows what we want from him, he knows his qualities really, really well now, he’s matured well and having him as an option in the squad will only be a positive for us.”
While the Blues are short of fit players in attack, Ben Godfrey’s signing - and Axel Tuanzebe being close to a return following his hamstring injury - means McKenna has decisions to make at the back.
"I don’t consider them dilemmas, just good options,” he continued. "We’re short in the forward areas at the moment in terms of numbers, shorter than where we would want to be, so that’s a challenge, especially for us and how we like to use our substitutes.
"I think we’ve got a much cleaner bill of health defensively, Axel’s not too far away as well, so hopefully we’ll come through the week well, he comes back and then we’ll have good strong options in those positions. That’s where we want to be across every position for the remaining games.”