Town boss Kieran McKenna has revealed on-loan forward Julio Enciso was left out of the team which faced West Ham today as he was focusing on the players who will be at the club next season and also to allow the forward to prepare for Paraguay’s World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay and Brazil, while Ben Johnson and Alex Palmer were among a number of players who have been ill over the last couple of weeks.
Enciso and Johnson were absentees from the 20-man squad announced ahead of the game, which the visitors won 3-1, McKenna having said there was illness in the camp at his pre-match press conference on Friday.
While Johnson, who joined the Blues after leaving the Hammers last summer, was unwell, McKenna revealed that a decision was taken not to involve Enciso, who has been on loan with the club from Brighton since January.
"Ben ill, Julio, no,” he said. "We decided in the week to focus, to go with the lads who are going to be here next year or permanently with us.
"He’s given a lot to the cause. He’s got big internationals next week, two qualifiers and he had a little niggle as well, so we allowed him to have the few days to prepare for those and we just focused on the game with the boys who have been with us who are going to be with us going forward.”
Enciso made 12 starts and one sub appearance for the Blues, scoring two goals.
Jens Cajuste, on loan from Napoli, was involved and McKenna was asked whether his involvement meant the Sweden international might be returning for next season having had an impressive season and finishing only 36 votes behind Liam Delap for the Supporters Club’s Player of the Year award
"I’ve already answered that, to be fair,” McKenna said. "We’d love to have Jens here, but there’s probably a lot to do for that to happen. We’ll see what the next few weeks brings.”
In addition to Johnson, keeper Alex Palmer dropped out of the side in the warm-up.
"I never like talking about sickness afterwards,” McKenna continued. "But we had a lot of lads with a vomiting bug, to be honest, and there were two or three of them on the pitch today.
"It hit Alex at 2.30pm and it’s been going round the group for the last couple of weeks, so that was a late one. But Christian [Walton] stepped in and did well.”