Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna has confirmed that Richard Keogh and Dominic Ball will be handed their debuts tomorrow night.

Having made a six-game unbeaten start to the new League One campaign, the Blues host League Two side Northampton Town in their opening Papa John's Trophy group match of the campaign (7.45pm ko).

Just like for the recent 1-0 Carabao Cup home loss to Colchester United, McKenna plans to make sweeping changes to his side.

Among those to come into the team will be summer recruits Keogh and Ball. Veteran defender Keogh has had a watching brief since arriving from Blackpool on August 10, while combative midfielder Ball, picked up from QPR in time for the start of pre-season, has only recently recovered from an ankle injury.

"Dominic and Richard Keogh should be available to make their debuts, so it will be good to see them in competitive action as well as other players in the group," said McKenna, whose other group opponents will be Arsenal U21s and Cambridge United.

"This is obviously a different competition. Our overriding priority is the league and that has to be really clear in all of our decisions.

"Primarily for me the group stages will be about minutes for the squad and the opportunity to look at different players, possibly look at some different options in terms of set-ups as well throughout the three games."

The likes of Vaclav Hladky, Kane Vincent-Young, Cameron Burgess, Kyle Edwards, Cameron Humphreys, Greg Leigh, Tyreece John-Jules, Sone Aluko and Kayden Jackson are all likely to be involved tomorrow night too, having not started in Saturday's 2-2 home draw with Barnsley.

"It's really important that we maintain our standards that we set," said McKenna. "The players, to be fair, don't accept anything less than 100% in training so I certainly don't expect, or will accept, anything less than that on Tuesday night.

"The players know it's a competitive game with a paying public and we have to respect that. Those are the demands we place on them every day at Playford Road in front of nobody.

"So I expect a committed performance, we'll do everything we can to win the game, but absolutely the priority is to progress in the league and improve our position from last year.

"We'll use these games for different reasons."