Town boss Kieran McKenna says Wes Burns is making good progress as he continues his recovery from his ACL injury with the Wales international the only player absent from training this week ahead of Saturday’s game at Blackburn Rovers.

Burns, 30, suffered the problem when challenging Cody Gakpo in the first half of the game against Liverpool at Anfield in January.

“He’s coming on well,” McKenna said. “Not training with the group yet, but working outside regularly, maybe not quite every day, but quite a few days a week now out on the grass with his boots on doing football movements and progressing well.

“I think all being well, maybe he can start joining in with some team training after the next international break, which would be a big boost for him and for us. All going in the right direction.”

Asked how long his return to match action might be from there, McKenna added: “There’s no point in putting timescales on these things. It’s a big injury, we want to be in a position where we can support Wes and help him get back to his best and give him the opportunity to play whenever he’s at full fitness.

“With a long-term injury like that, you don’t want to put a constraint on one week’s full training or two weeks’ full training, you very much respond to how the player’s reacting to the training sessions and how he’s progressing and we won’t really know that until we get him back in and around the group and see how he’s getting on.”

Ashley Young missed last week’s 5-0 hammering of Sheffield United with some muscle tightness but McKenna says the former Manchester United man will travel to Ewood Park.

“Ashley’s doing better, he was just managing a little bit of an issue but he’s trained with the group this week, so he’ll be available this weekend,” the Blues boss confirmed.

Jens Cajuste required treatment in the second half against the Blades after turning his ankle but McKenna says the Sweden international has felt no ill effects.

“Jens was good,” he added, “so we’ve had the full group apart from Wes training this week.”

Photo: Matchday Images

johnwarksshorts added 15:11 - Sep 18 Onwards and upwards. Now let's start climbing up the league.
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Mark added 15:16 - Sep 18 That's all sounding really positive. It feels a long time since Ipswich last had just one player out with injury, long may that good fortune continue!
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flykickingbybgunn added 15:38 - Sep 18 Wes's injury was awful. I'm pleased he is fighting back and look forward to seeing him in the new shirt. The season started last Friday. Lets keep it up now.
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trevski_s added 16:04 - Sep 18 Overall great news, Wes nearly back and seems like everyone is good to go. I know Wes has been out a while but hopefully he will be raring to go as well when back to full fitness Can see it being the same squad that destroyed Sheff Utd last week with the only change maybe being Egali start instead of McAteer as he looked really good when he came on. I would love to see Nunez start too as he looked good on Friday but both Cajuste and Matusiwa were brilliant. Mckenna going to have some tough selection choices this season

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Bazza8564 added 16:15 - Sep 18 Trevski. Like your thinking, isnt it great t have options like this !!
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Dissboyitfc added 16:33 - Sep 18 Excellent news! KM certainly will have some headache selections if we can remain relatively injury free!
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