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Ipswich Town: Injury concerns ahead of the trip to Brentford

Published

4 weeks ago

October 24, 2024

Kelvin

Kieran McKenna, Ipswich Town’s manager, has stated that he is dealing with additional injuries ahead of Saturday’s encounter at Brentford.

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Axel Tuanzebe, Jacob Greaves, Ben Johnson, and Massimo Luongo all missed last weekend’s 2-0 home loss to Everton.

All four are still inaccessible, and McKenna claims there are some new concerns on top of that.

“We’ve had a couple of big injuries to key defenders and have some more challenges going into this weekend,” he said, speaking at this afternoon’s press conference.

“None of the players who weren’t involved against Everton will come back into the picture this weekend and we’ve got a few other issues that we have to assess over the next 48 hours.

“Ben Johnson is still out with a small thigh injury. There was a possibility he could have made it for this weekend, but he’s not been able to make it. We’ll have to see how he is next week.

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“The timeframe for Axel (thumb surgery) is still rough, to be honest. He won’t be back before the next international break. We’re still looking at what type of cast can be fitted and when it would be suitable. It won’t be before Tottenham.”

The only player who has returned to fitness is Napoli loan midfielder Jens Cajuste.

“Jens has trained in the last two days, so we’ll have to make a judgement tomorrow as to whether he can be involved in the game and for how long,” said McKenna, when asked about the Swedish international.

McKenna, who has played 26 different players in the first eight league games, explained: “Some players arrived late (in the transfer window), and we’ve had some injuries. You will face these challenges throughout the season.

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“We seem to be having a period now where we’re going through that. In quite a few positions we want to build consistency and build relationships, but that’s a challenge at the minute.

“This is a period where we have to stay really strong as a group and come out the other side as strong as possible. There will be other phases in the season where we manage to keep the same group of players available and manage to be more consistent with our selection.”