New Town boss Gary O’Neil says everyone should be fit aside from Azor Matusiwa and Jack Taylor for Saturday’s opening Premier League game of the season against Sunderland at Portman Road.

Abdul Fatawu and Florentino Luis were left out of the squad for the 4-2 friendly victory at Union Berlin last weekend but O’Neil says he anticipates having fully fit squad, aside from Matusiwa and Taylor, who both underwent surgery at the end of last season and have taken no part in pre-season friendlies.

“Everyone’s in a good place,” O’Neil said at his first pre-match press conference in the media suite in the new training ground building, which opened this week. “We should have pretty much everyone back, there’s a couple of late checks but I would anticipate us to be full strength.

“Azor and Jack Taylor will be the only two exceptions to that, they don’t quite make it in time. The rest of the guys I think will be OK.

“Obviously, there are a few days left. I’m really pleased with where we are at and what we have managed to build.

“But I do expect us to be even stronger again over the next two to three weeks with those players coming back from injury and the close of the transfer window. I expect us to keep getting stronger.”

Earlier in the week, it was reported in Spain that keeper Kayne van Oevelen’s loan move to Valencia had been delayed until Monday due to an injury to another of the Blues’ glovesmen.

“I haven’t seen any of that,” O’Neil said when asked about those reports. “We’re not sure on the goalkeeping department. I think we’ve got five excellent goalies in the building at the moment. I don’t think we’ll close the window with five in the building, that would be unnecessary, so there will be some movement.

“The tricky thing for me is that when Kjell [Scherpen] arrived he had a small issue with his knee, so it took him a while to train.

“Unfortunately for Walts [Christian Walton], we lost him for five weeks with just an incident in training with no one around him, so I’m forced into making decisions tomorrow without having loads of time to have eyes on the goalkeeping department.

“But confident that whichever way we go with starting tomorrow and the bench, and whoever leaves, that we have enough good goalies in the building that we’re going to be fine.

“It’s a strong department, a tough decision for me, but we’re already to go and let’s see what happens with the outs over the next few days, nothing’s confirmed at the moment as to who it will be or where.”

In addition to Scherpen, who looks the likely starter tomorrow, Walton and Van Oevelen, Alex Palmer and David Button make up the senior keeping department with younger number ones Cieran Slicker and Henry Gray having gone out on loan to Barnsley and Wellington Phoenix earlier in the summer.

O’Neil confirmed that both new signings from Strasbourg, Julio Enciso and Abdoul Ouattara, will be in the squad.

Photo: TWTD