Town boss Kieran McKenna says Sammie Szmodics, Elkan Baggott and Fin Barbrook will be in the squad for tomorrow’s FA Cup third round tie at home, but George Hirst remains unavailable.

Hirst suffered a groin injury in the game against Sheffield Wednesday last month, while Szmodics was ill over Christmas having not long returned after knee surgery.

“Not George Hirst, hopefully he’ll be back in training next week,” McKenna said when asked whether the Scotland international would be involved against the League One side.

“Sammie, yes. He’s trained with the group this week, so it’ll be good to have him involved in the game.

“We’ll have to make a decision on minutes because he missed a couple of weeks of training in the end and hasn’t started for quite a while. We’ll make a judgement on minutes but it will be good to have them back in the squad.”

McKenna also confirmed centre-half Elkan Baggott, a one-time Blackpool loanee who is yet to make an appearance for the Blues this season, will also play some part: “He’ll be involved.”

Regarding the Indonesia international potentially going out on loan, the Town manager said another player exiting soon is on the cards, Cameron Humphreys having joined Huddersfield yesterday.

“It's not impossible,” he said regarding Baggott, “There might be a chance of another loan over the weekend.

“With Elkan, we are having those discussions with him. Again, it is a fine balance as he has been one of four senior centre-halves this year. I don't think there's a club in the Championship that has fewer than four centre-halves.

“But again, the form and fitness of the three players ahead of him means he hasn’t had minutes on the pitch.

“I still think he has improved and he is a better player now than when he started pre-season on 1st July. His application in training is outstanding. He has worked so hard with the coaches individually and he’ll see some of the fruits of that labour when he starts picking up minutes again, whenever, wherever that is.

“We are trying to make the right judgements on that and making sure we have enough cover in the squad.

“As much as we have had really good injury availability first half of the season, that can change quick so we have to make sure we have enough cover.

“But with your good young players that you rate highly, you want them to get minutes for their development as well. We will try and make the right call over the next couple of weeks and see where that situation ends up.”

Midfielder Barbrook, who has just returned from loan at Lincoln, will also be in the 20.

“Fin Barbrook’s in the squad,” McKenna added. “Nothing confirmed [on Barbrook going out on another loan]. Of course, Fin’s a player who we like, had a loan experience in the first half of the season but didn’t get the minutes, so we’re reviewing that over the next few weeks.

“At the moment, he’s training with us very, very regularly. It’s a position where we don’t have as much cover, especially with Cameron going on loan, so for now he’s part of our group, but we’ll review that as the squad develops over the course of January.”

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