Titus Bramble will be fit to face Leicester tomorrow despite missing out on England U21 duty with an ankle injury. Town will welcome back Hermann Hreidarsson, Jim Magilton and Pablo Couñago when they return from international duty today.

Definitely missing will be Gary Croft (recovering from groin operation), Sixto Peralta (thigh twinges after the reserve game), Tommy Miller (foot) and Fabian Wilnis who has only just started training after his hamstring injury. Andy Marshall is on the mend after his back injury, but is still a week away from inclusion.

John McGreal looks likely to start while Alun Armstrong and Mark Venus are both on the way back after injury.

Marcus Stewart has once again backed Darren Bent to make a major impact. Earlier in the season Stewart described the Town youngster as the best prospect he has ever seen, an opinion he has repeated.

Stewart said: "He is the best young player I have ever seen and worked with. I have seen Delroy Facey and Danny Schofield at Huddersfield, two very good youngsters, but they are not as good as Darren. He is an excellent finisher, he is quick and has good ability. He is strong but doesn't really know how to use his body yet. But with experience that will come and it's easy to forget he is only 17."

Stewart also feels that Bent's progress was one reason that George Burley allowed James Scowcroft to leave in the summer: "I really believe the manager saw Darren's ability and decided he could let Scowy go and bring Darren through."

Of his own form Stewart is not worried despite no goals so far: "I'm not too bothered by that. If it was 20 games into the season and I went three games without scoring no-one would really say anything, but because it is the start of the season it is more noticeable."

Amir Karic has said that Town will need to win by at least two goals in the home leg with Torpedo Moscow. The Slovenian international played against a couple of Torpedo players this week as his national side near the World Cup.

Karic said: "The two players didn't particularly stand out but the Russians are all good players and you need to be very good to get in the national team. We need to be looking at taking a two-goal lead to Russia from the first leg."

The Torpedo players involved in the Slovenia-Russia game, which ended 2-1 to Karic's country, were defender Aleksandr Dayev and striker Aleksandr Shirko. Torpedo lost 4-0 in a friendly with Vfl Bochum last week.

Photo: Action Images

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