Town boss Kieran McKenna says the squad has one or two little issues from the Southampton game which are being assessed but confirmed Sammie Szmodics didn’t suffer a fracture to his arm and that recent loan signings Jens Cajuste and Chuba Akpom have trained with the squad this week.

Quizzed on how the squad came through the 1-1 home draw with the Saints, McKenna said: “We’ve had one or two little issues from the game that we’re still getting assessed. The squad’s probably not where we’d like it to be in terms of numbers for this stage of the season, but we’ll have plenty to be competitive on the pitch on Saturday and hopefully enough on the bench to have a big impact as well.”

Szmodics was struggling with his arm in the latter stages having collided with Southampton keeper Gavin Bazunu but McKenna says concerns that he had broken it proved unfounded.

“He’s recovering well, there was a bit of fear it might have been a break but x-rays have cleared that up,” he said. “So he’s got some really, really heavy bruising there, but he’s recovering well.”

Regarding Cajuste, who had little pre-season before rejoining on loan from Napoli, he added: “He’s closer, certainly. We’re hopeful that he’ll build up minutes again this weekend. He got maybe 20 minutes on Sunday and we’ll hope to build that up again this weekend.

“Whether that’s minutes off the bench or minutes from the start, we’ll have to make the right judgement because there’s a delicate balance to that.

“And it’s really useful to have him here as that’s a department that’s undergone a lot of change. We’d lost four of the five players from that unit last year before Jens came back with Samy [Morsy], Kalvin [Phillips] and Massimo [Luongo] moving on, so to have Jens back with Jack Taylor, who was here as well, is really helpful from a tactical point of view and an understanding point of view. The integration will be a little bit quicker. Really happy to have him.”

On forward Akpom, who suffered some tightness in training last week having signed on loan from Ajax, he said: “He’s trained with the group now for the last couple of days, so that’s the first really he’s trained full throttle with the group, so that’s a positive step forward. All being well, he’ll be with us for Preston.”

Photo: TWTD

Mark added 15:22 - Aug 21 Positive news. Let's go to Preston and get the three points, as it will be easier to attract new signings ahead of the transfer window closing if we are in the top half of the league.
2

IndependentlyBlue added 15:23 - Aug 21 All seems like good news but am sure some will come on here and find something to moan about. Ho hum.
2

Bazza8564 added 15:23 - Aug 21 Having Akpom available as well as Jens will be excellent. We have enough depth to protect them from 90minutes so lets so those other niggles are nothing much
1

flykickingbybgunn added 15:40 - Aug 21 Must not rush them in too soon though. I'm sure KMcK wont. I think Cajuste is our best signing this summer.
0

BlueInBerks added 15:51 - Aug 21 PNE forum comments: This is a big test, they have started the season with 2 draws but they should be bouncing straight back up to the big league. I haven't been hugely impressed with what I’ve seen of them... There is a strong rumour Szmodic has a hairline arm fracture... If Szmodics is playing, I want a centre back going maximum aggression on him. They're definitely beatable, but a draw wouldn't be bad. A point would represent a very positive start to the season I always thought we had a reasonable chance of beating one of Leicester or Ipswich A much tougher game than Leicester I feel. Signing an injured player (Akpom)? What club would be stupid enough to do that?! Another team that will be looking to attack us, so should play well into the hands of Small/Osmajic again. And leaving the best for last, and an absolute clincher... But they have that singer fella…..

1

Blogs 298 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls