Town get their public pre-season friendly programme under way this afternoon when they face Ukrainian champions Shakhtar Donetsk in two one-hour-long matches at Sportzentrum Landskron in Villach.

The first of the two games kicks off at 2pm CET (1pm BST) with the second following immediately.

As in previous similar back-to-back pre-season games in the past, manager Kieran McKenna will name different XIs in each match with most players getting the full 60 minutes.

The Blues have 20 senior players who have been training plus youngsters Henry Gray, Edwin Agbaje, Ryan Carr, Finley Barbrook and Leon Ayinde also having made the trip.

Ali Al-Hamadi travelled but is not training having undergone an adductor operation earlier in the summer.

Harry Clarke, having also gone under the knife for achilles issues, Nathan Broadhead, Cameron Humphreys, who both picked up knocks in behind-closed-doors games, and Axel Tuanzebe, personal reasons, are not with the squad.

Centre-half Corrie Ndaba also stayed behind with his exit expected at some point over the summer with former club Kilmarnock and Hibernian both eyeing a move for the Dubliner.

All five of the club’s new signings are expected to be in action. Omari Hutchinson will be familiar following his excellent loan spell last season, while fans can catch Ben Johnson, Jacob Greaves, Liam Delap and Aro Muric for the first time.

Few Blues supporters are believed to have made the trip to Austria, tickets are on the gate at €12, but all five of the club’s public pre-season games are on TownTV.

Shakhtar, who are currently based in Lviv having not played at their home Donbass Arena since the start of the war there in 2014, are the current Ukrainian champions, their 2023/24 title a record 15th. You can read about their squad in a TWTD blog here.

So far, they have played five pre-season friendlies, all in Slovenia, beating FK Sarajevo 4-1, drawing 1-1 with Hadjuk Split and losing 1-0 to Serbian side TSC, before victories over two Turkish clubs, a 5-0 thrashing of Rizespor 5-0 and a 1-0 defeat of Besiktas.

The Blues, who have already played two behind-closed-doors training games at Playford Road against Needham Market and Reading, are in action at Portman Road for the first time next Saturday when they host old friends Fortuna Düsseldorf.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

jayceee added 09:34 - Jul 20 Great to see that many of our youngsters with them - must be incredibly inspiring to be around the seniors who'll all be buzzing for the season ahead.
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