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McKenna: Hutchinson With Squad on Friday If Over Medical Issue - Ipswich Town News

Blues manager Kieran McKenna says forward Omari Hutchinson will be with the squad on Friday night at Birmingham if he overcomes a medical issue picked up earlier in the week.

The England U21 international was left out of the party which travelled to Auxerre at the weekend as he "didn’t feel mentally in the right place” given the speculation regarding his future.

Brentford had bids of up to £35 million offer turned down last month but are widely expected to come back in for the 21-year-old. Earlier in the week, The Sun linked Nottingham Forest, Everton, Inter Milan and RB Leipzig with interest in the former Chelsea man.

"Omari was training on Monday and trained well and then unfortunately has had a medical issue for the last two days, so hasn’t been with the group,” McKenna said.

"Hopefully, if there’s a good recovery from that, he’ll be with us on Friday night.”

Asked whether there was anything ongoing with Hutchinson at present, any active interest, McKenna said: "I think there’s interest in lots of our players. We’ve had some strong performances over the last few years. We’ve got different interest in different players, I won’t list them all.

"He’s certainly a player of ours who has interest from different clubs, but there’s nothing really to update. He’s an Ipswich player and the club has real goals this season and everyone who is an Ipswich player at the moment has to be fully ready to contribute to those and be ready to help us have a successful year.”

Asked how challenging it is for managers to be supportive to a player going through transfer uncertainty, McKenna reflected: "It’s about having empathy, and that needs to be the case on both sides.

"Of course, from players who have interest, and we’ve got quite a few players in the squad who have interest or different options, of course, you want to see it from their perspective and you do understand it from their perspective in terms of a player’s career being short and you want to support them in the best way with the career steps that they want to make.

"But then also as the manager, your chief responsibility is doing the right thing by the club and the right thing by the club is making sure we have the strength and the quality that we need to have a successful season.

"Of course, you want all those goals to marry up. We haven’t had too many instances over the last few years that they haven’t but the situation we’re in now, those positions, those priorities aren’t always exactly the same and that’s the natural challenge of the position that we’re in.

"I think it’s important that empathy is shown in both directions, professionalism, doing the right thing, sticking to the right values and finding the right solutions for all parties.”

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