Boss Kieran McKenna says the Blues are in a good position illness and injury-wise going into Saturday’s game at Gillingham.

Town had a handful of Covid cases in the week leading up to their last match, the 1-0 home victory over Wycombe between Christmas and New Year, but McKenna says everyone is now fine on that front.

“Thankfully we’re in a really good position. No illness in the group over the last week or so, so that’s been good,” the Northern Irishman said.

“We’ve a few players back in training now recovering from illness and injury, so we’ve had a really big, large group available to train.

“I think Jon Nolan and Coulson are the only two absentees at the moment, and other than that we’ve had a really big group training and everyone fighting and competing to be involved in the game on Saturday.”

Coulson has spent time back at Middlesbrough as he continues his recovery from the knock he sustained at Wycombe at the start of November. Speaking last week, Boro boss Chris Wilder said the left-back was four-to-six weeks from making his return to action.

Among those who had previously been out but who were pictured in training earlier in the week were keeper Christian Walton, forwards Bersant Celina and Kyle Edwards, while centre-half Cameron Burgess was also unavailable.

Town’s New Year’s Day game at home to Lincoln was postponed due to Covid cases at the Imps, which McKenna said had positives and negatives.

“It’s silver linings,” he reflected. “We wanted to play the Lincoln game, we felt like we had good momentum and good options to come into that game as well.

“But it wasn’t to be, so we’ve used the time well. Lots of training, lots of work on the pitch, meetings, trying to get a better understanding of the players and give them a better understanding of how we want to play.

“We’ve managed to give them a day or two off as well along the way, so we feel like we’re in a good position.

“Everyone’s fresh, we’ve worked a lot, we’re hungry and everyone’s looking forward to the game.”

Photo: Matchday Images

trncbluearmy added 14:40 - Jan 6 Understood all that!
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MagicMoe added 14:43 - Jan 6 Yes, real sentences!
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rgp1 added 14:46 - Jan 6 Nice short and sweet, no b@llocks about how he played for a big club or done his grannys shopping on his day off!
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IpswichToon added 14:59 - Jan 6 When was the last time we heard an Ipswich manager say our injury list is in good shape!?
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Bobbiesboys added 15:02 - Jan 6 Nice to have a manager that makes real sense and is very open and honest about what's going on at the club.
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BobbyBell added 15:23 - Jan 6 Sounds like there's some really good man management going on now along with the training. If the players can't perform for this guy then they're in the wrong jobs.
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TimmyH added 15:55 - Jan 6 Well that's good news! lets just hope the same can be said about our forthcoming opponents and covid.
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Gatehouse added 16:15 - Jan 6 Nolan does anybody know the true story about his injuries or if he still actually exists!!!
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Cloddyseedbed added 16:56 - Jan 6 Gatehouse. According to KMcK Nolan is recovering from a knock. Must have been one hell of a knock! When/if he gets fit enough to play he needs shipping out. He should have gone in the summer, if Cook had a recruitment room it would have made all the difference. :)
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jas0999 added 17:14 - Jan 6 Good interview!
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Sospiri added 03:07 - Jan 7 Both Coulson and Nolan are excellent players at this level when they are fit. Must be gutting for both of them not to be even available to play.
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