Mick McCarthy admitted he could make ‘a couple of changes’ for this weekend’s visit of rock-bottom Burton Albion, but he will again be without forward David McGoldrick.
The striker, linked with Bolton on deadline day, misses out on a return having also missed last weekend’s win at Sunderland.
But McCarthy, who has regularly stuck with a winning side when it comes team selection, admitted he could make changes this weekend, with the likes of Bersant Celina and Mustapha Carayol unused substitutes at the Stadium of Light.
“I made a couple of changes and it worked, but that isn’t to say it’s going to be the same this week,” he said.
“It’s not Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday in terms of changing people and having fresh legs. I thought the lads were very good on Saturday but, you never know, there might be a couple of changes in there.
“If you change it everyone is like ‘why have you done that, you won’ and then the other way round it’s just the same.
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“I thought we played well and I thought the two lads that came in, Freddie and Wardy, played very well but there were some good players on the bench, too.”
Tristan Nydam will miss out through illness, but McCarthy was not able to put a timeframe on a potential return for long-term injury victim Tom Adeyemi.
“Thankfully the injury wasn’t as bad as we thought when he pulled up,” he said.
“I can’t put a timeframe on it but we’re a lot more optimistic than when we first did it.”
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McGoldrick is suffering with a knee injury, with McCarthy hopeful he will return soon, but unsure if or when contract talks might begin with a player out of contract this summer.
“Didzy has a sore knee but he is optimistic it will be better fairly quickly when I spoke to him this morning,” McCarthy said.
“I don’t know. That’s for the club to decide and for him of course. I think his family are back up in the Midlands and that doesn’t making it easy. It’s not a commute, because he lives down here, but you still have to go and see them. He can’t just stay down here and have a family with young kids, so it’s up to him what he wants to do as well.”
McCarthy will also have to decide whether to give Cameron Carter-Vickers a fourth-consecutive start or bring Adam Webster back into his side, but the Blues boss has been impressed with his Tottenham loanee.
“I think he’s done well,” McCarthy said. “He did well at Bolton and maybe played himself in (on his debut) but I thought at Sunderland he was excellent and his training has been good.
“He’s had to be because I’ve got one of my own (Webster) when he’s fit but he’s had to make do on the bench.”
The Ipswich manager insisted he is under no pressure to ensure gametime for Carter-Vickers, with many loan deals including stipulations regarding appearances and a sliding scale of loan fees. He did admit, though, that that may change of the Blues found themselves with nothing to play for come the end of the season.
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“I think you know how much I would bend to someone who says I have to play someone in the team, whatever that might be,” he said.
“I have to say, if it came to the end of the season and being brutally honest, if we couldn’t go up, we couldn’t go down and somebody had to stay to save a large loan fee, then of course I would play them.
“I won’t tell any lies about that but while we are either or and are eight points off the play-offs, nobody, not Marcus or anybody, will tell me what team to pick.”
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