Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna says he will 'protect our main priority' when selecting his team for tomorrow's FA Cup fourth round home tie with Burnley.

With this the first time the Blues have reached the last 32 stage of the competition since 2010, close to 23,000 tickets have been sold for a clash between two easy-on-the-eye sides pushing for promotion at the top end of League One and the Championship respectively.

"It’s a balancing act as always," said McKenna, when asked how strong a team he would pick.

"We have a couple of players who have minor issues after the Saturday-Tuesday games (Oxford and Morecambe).

"If tomorrow was a cup final or massively important league game they might be available for selection, but we have to protect our main priority which is progressing in the league. 

"We will look after a few players. There will be changes in the team from a physical point of view and also from a rotation point of view because we need to have a strong squad fit and ready to play in the league games coming up. 

"There were changes in the last round, of course (when Town beat Championship strugglers Rotherham 4-1 at Portman Road).

"I know that whatever team we put out is going to be excited and ready to take the challenge head on."

He continued: "We have big games coming up. We have Saturday-Tuesday weeks coming up. We've got two players competing for every position and both need to be ready because, as we've seen in the first half of the season, things can change very quickly (with injuries). 

"'Everybody ready' is an important message for us at the moment. A lot of that comes from training, but game time is also invaluable and when there's the chance to have that, certainly in such a high level game, we have to use that.  

"But we also need to pick a team that gives us a good chance of being competitive. We'll try and find that balance."

The Town team that started Tuesday night's 4-0 home win against Morecambe was: Christian Walton, Harry Clarke, Richard Keogh, George Edmundson, Leif Davis, Lee Evans, Sam Morsy, Wes Burns, Conor Chaplin, Nathan Broadhead and Freddie Ladapo.

Burns came off at half-time in that match with a tight calf.

Clarke is cup-tied for tomorrow's game, having already played in the competition for Stoke this season, meaning Janoi Donacien is likely to start.

Other options for rotation include Vaclav Hladky, Kane Vincent-Young, Luke Woolfenden, Cameron Burgess, Greg Leigh, Cameron Humphreys, Massimo Luongo, Kayden Jackson, Kyle Edwards, Sone Aluko, Marcus Harness, George Hirst and Gassan Ahadme.

"It would have been nice to have played them completey fresh at the end of a free week to be honest," said McKenna

"But that’s not the case. We're coming off the back of a Saturday-Tuesday and we have some knocks and niggles.  

"But I know that our team will be ready to fight and compete with everything, like we did in the last round, to try and show that we’re a good team and still be in the hat on Saturday night."