Blues boss Paul Hurst admits that he needs new additions to his squad and soon with the opening game against Blackburn Rovers at Portman Road only just over a week away.

So far the new Blues boss has signed Trevoh Chalobah on loan from Chelsea, free agent Jordan Roberts, another winger Gwion Edwards from Peterborough and striker Ellis Harrison from Bristol Rovers. Chalobah has been away with the England U19s but, along with Ben Morris, flies back on Friday.

“We certainly need to [make further additions] and realistically we need to for Blackburn,” Hurst said.

“The squad at times has already been very, very stretched. We’ve got players that we’ve inherited that are coming back from injury that aren’t going to be ready.

“We’ve got someone like Tom Adeyemi who started but is injured again. Some of the lads that are joining in at the minute, they’re not ready.

“And then we’ve got a little bit of a worry with Cole Skuse, Tristan Nydam missed the game the other night. We are really stretched.

“Pre-season’s fine, as in you can say, ‘You’ve won games, you’ve kept clean sheets’, but I think we all know it’s a different story in the Championship and we certainly need some strength in depth, some lads to come in and probably as starters, in all honesty.

“It all takes time and patience is a word which I have to keep using and it’s certainly testing my patience.”

Regarding Skuse, Hurst says there’s no serious problem but that the midfielder is likely to miss the friendly with West Ham on Saturday.

“It’s just his thigh, he felt it at the MK Dons, which was why he came off at half-time,” he said.

“We genuinely don’t think it’s anything too serious but I think he would have happily have gone out the other night but we might well have risked him for a much longer period out.

“He’s given a few signs to the physios that he could be involved on Saturday, but that decision may be taken out of his hands because I’m not prepared to risk someone like Cole in that game.”

Among those training at the club’s Open Day but not yet ready to be involved in games were Teddy Bishop, Joe Garner and Danny Rowe, while Emyr Huws was on the pitch training with a physio but not involved with the rest of the squad.

Adeyemi, who has picked up an achilles problem in pre-season, and was the only senior player not involved other than Skuse.

Photo: TWTD

Steelmonkey added 06:50 - Jul 27 Bildestoned - Hurst has quite rightly recognised Skuse's importance to the squad but probably only because he is so short of cover in that position at the moment, hopefully that will change when injuries and new additions allow.
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