 Friday, 12th Mar 2010 13:12 Boss Roy Keane says two unnamed members of his squad are injury doubts ahead of Saturday’s home game with Scunthorpe. The Blues are already without midfielder Grant Leadbitter, who is serving the final match of a two-game ban. Keane says that despite the pair suffering knocks, he is considering picking an unchanged side for only the third time this season: “We’ll have a look at it this morning, the players have had a couple of days to recover. ”We’ll do a light session this morning, we’ll see how the players are looking, how their body language is and what kind of mood I’m in.” The Blues boss was delighted to pick up three points against Cardiff on Tuesday but feels that a number of other recent displays also warranted victories: “I think we’ve been playing OK anyway. What we did the other night was take our chances. We didn’t do that against Bristol City, we didn’t do it against Blackpool. “When you put the ball in the back of the net everyone automatically thinks you’ve played much better, but the difference the other night was that we took a couple of our chances. “I think the players have been playing fairly well and we need that to continue and gain back to back wins if we can.” Keane says he is perplexed as to why his side is still to record two wins on the trot in the league this season: “It's amazing. I wish I could give you an answer for it. “We had such a poor start to the season but in the last three or four months, other than the odd blip here and there, we've generally played well and have had chances in every game. Very good chances, even the other night we could have scored three or four easily, but we managed to score two. “Against Bristol City we had 20-odd chances, 10 of them were very, very good ones. People say the keeper played well, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that, I think there were some bad finishes.” Keane says the Blues have done better at Portman Road than away this season: “Our home form has been decent and you go into every game believing you can get a result. “But we’ve been down this road before, we’ve had some good performances, but we’ve not backed it up. “Any team can win a game of football but the good teams back it up and we need to back it up tomorrow. The players have got to do the talking on the pitch. “There's been far too much talking going on, from me, the staff, the players and everyone. Let’s judge the players on what they do on Saturday afternoon.” The Town manager expects a more difficult game than Tuesday’s relatively comfortable victory against the Bluebirds: “Tomorrow will be a tougher game than Cardiff in that when you play teams in the top six they know they can afford to lose two or three games and still be fairly sure of making the play-offs. “But when we’re playing teams down around us it’s a different test for us and we’ve come up short in the games against Peterborough and Sheffield Wednesday at home. Scunthorpe are fighting for their lives, so whatever we did the other night is finished with. “We’ve shown before we can perform against the teams near the top, particularly at home. We should have beaten West Brom at home, we drew with Forest, we beat Blackpool and Cardiff the other night, all teams around the top six or seven. “But we have to do it against the teams around us. We managed to pick up one or two decent results away from home, at Scunthorpe and Sheffield Wednesday, but we need a few victories over the next few months.” Keane is unlikely to make too many changes to Tuesday’s team unless injuries force him to leave people out. Brian Murphy will continue in goal with Richard Wright now fit and vying with Arran Lee-Barrett for the substitute keeper’s role. Shane O’Connor continued his impressive start to his first team career against Cardiff and is likely to keep his place on the left of the defence with Damien Delaney and Gareth McAuley in the centre. David Wright had one of his most solid games this season at right-back with Liam Rosenior rested and Keane will have to choose between the two of them for the final defensive role. With Leadbitter still suspended, David Norris is unlikely to be dropped, while Owen Garvan did enough against Cardiff to keep his place alongside the former Plymouth man in the centre. Jack Colback was again hugely impressive on the left, while skipper Jon Walters will almost certainly be in his most favoured role on the right. Daryl Murphy looks set to continue his push to become Town’s top scorer for the season with David Healy likely to keep his place alongside him, although Pablo Couñago and Connor Wickham have both impressed when coming off the bench in recent weeks. Scunthorpe, three points and two places behind the Blues in 20th, having played a game fewer and with an away record of won three, drawn three and lost 11, haven’t played for a fortnight and spent the week at the Champneys Springs Health Resort in Leicestershire. Manager Nigel Adkins was at Town’s game against Cardiff and feels that the Blues can still make the top six, a suggestion that Roy Keane dismissed at his pre-match press conference. The Iron boss said: "I went to watch Ipswich Town defeat Cardiff City on Tuesday evening, and I have no idea why they are where they are in the league for the simple reason that they were outstanding the other night. "They play a very high tempo, are very direct and are also a massive threat from set-plays with the big team they've got. "They have a good, patient crowd down there, the stadium is lovely, as is the pitch - and it's going to be one heck of a game. We played them a few weeks ago and were disappointed not to take all three points. "I still wouldn't rule out a push for them to get in the play-offs, strange as that may sound, as they've got the armoury to go and achieve it.” Like Keane, Adkins is keeping his cards very close to his chest in terms of injuries: "If we did have any injury doubts I wouldn't tell anybody about them now. We're going to use everything we can to keep the opposition guessing. "If that just gives us one opportunity to get something from the game then we'll take it. "We're in a battle and over the course of a long season people are going to have little things wrong with them which they have to deal with "I'll choose what's right for the team on Saturday. Every game is different. The lads will go out with the information we give them to go out and perform." Central defender Rob Jones — a Town target during his time at Hibs — is back in contention after a broken nose, while midfielder or full-back Andrew Wright is fine after an ankle injury. Defender Kenny Milne was substituted early in a reserves game at Leicester in midweek with exhaustion as he continues his comeback after a lengthy absence due to a knee problem, although Adkins says he should be fine. Midfielder Ian Morris has been out with a knee injury, while striker Ben May is suspended having been red-carded in a recent reserves game. Midfield man Michael O'Connor serves the third game of a three-match ban, two of which have been games against the Blues. Scunthorpe have only beaten the Blues once in history, a 4-0 win at the Old Showground back in Town’s 1960/61 Second Division championship season. The Blues have won seven (five in the league) and drawn three (three). Last month, the sides drew 1-1 at Glanford Park, Cliff Byrne scoring for the Iron and David Healy netting his first for the Blues soon after. Prior to that, the sides met most recently two years ago in Scunthorpe’s relegation season, Town doing the double over Nigel Adkins’s men. At Portman Road, goals from Pablo Couñago, Owen Garvan and Tommy Miller gave the Blues a 3-2 win with Martin Paterson scoring both goals for the visitors. Later that season at Glanford Park, Couñago and fellow Spaniard Sito, netting his only Town goal, saw the Blues to a 2-1 win with Ben May scoring for the home side in the final minute. Couñago and Jack Cork, on loan with Scunthorpe from Chelsea, were both red-carded in the second half after a scuffle. No member of the current Scunthorpe squad has played for the Blues, while Liam Trotter spent time on loan at Glanford Park last season and came on as a sub in their play-off final victory over Millwall, the club with whom he is currently on loan. The Lincolnshire side offered the Ipswich-born midfielder, who made five starts and nine sub appearances, scoring one goal during his time with the Iron, a contract in the summer but he decided to remain at Portman Road. Jon Walters was also a loanee at Scunthorpe, in 2005 when a Hull City player, making three appearances but failing to score. Those travelling to the game via the A14 should not that they are likely to face delays of around 20 minutes due to roadworks. There will be traffic restrictions around junction 54 with only one lane open and a 50mph speed limit. Saturday’s referee, unless there’s a late change as was the case in the last two Town matches, is Pat Miller from Bedfordshire, who has shown 41 yellow and two red cards in 14 games so far this season. Miller’s most recent game involving the Blues was the needless card-fest which was last season’s 3-1 win at Plymouth, during which he booked six Argyle players in addition to Gareth McAuley, Owen Garvan and Moritz Volz, while David Norris was red-carded having received two cautions on his return to his old club. Squad from: B Murphy, Lee-Barrett, R Wright, D Wright, Rosenior, O’Connor, Delaney, McAuley, Balkestein, Norris, Garvan, Colback, Walters, Edwards, Peters, Quinn, Martin, D Murphy, Healy, Wickham, Couñago.
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