Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna has not given much away about who will feature up front against Newcastle at Portman Road tomorrow and there are no fresh injury concerns for his side.
The Blues boss will be without Liam Delap, the club’s top goalscorer this season, who is unable to play as a result of accumulating five yellow cards so far this campaign.
The yellow card came in a post-match incident against Wolves last weekend in which home defender Rayan Ait-Nouri was given his second caution and then a red card.
Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna has not said who will start up front against Newcastle on Saturday. Picture: Barry Goodwin
Matheus Cunha was also charged by the FA later in the week for clashing with a member of the Town security team.
McKenna said he sought clarification regarding Delap’s yellow card from referee Simon Hooper following his post-match press conference at Molineux.
He said: “In terms of what went on, I spoke to the referee after the press conference and he said that there’s a rule - and I’ve got other things to worry about other than the referees - he said that there’s a rule that if there’s a fracas on the pitch, then somebody from both teams has to be booked, which somebody else will have to check to see if that’s true or not, but I take him at face value on that.
“I’ve watched back the incident. I was in and around it at the time and I don’t see any particular fracas from our players or anything particularly untoward from our players, but Liam got booked within that.
“We’re disappointed to lose him for tomorrow, no doubt about that, I think he’s been in really good form, I have to say.
I know he hasn't scored in the last few games, but I think he’s playing really well for the team and, of course, with George (Hirst) out, we don’t want to lose both of them.
Striker Liam Delap is missing tomorrow’s fixture against Eddie Howe’s side after he accumulated five yellow cards in the Premier League this season. Picture: Barry Goodwin
“So it makes it a different challenge for this weekend, but a different challenge is always a different opportunity as well, an opportunity for other people to step up and bring their strengths to the team and a good challenge for us in terms of adapting to the strength of whoever comes into the team and trying to make the team as competitive as possible.”
Delap has scored six goals in the top-flight this season, more than the likes of Tottenham’s Dominic Solanke and Arsenal’s Kai Havertz.
As Hirst remains out with a knee injury, it means that Ali Al-Hamadi could be given his first Premier League start.
However, Sammie Szmodics, who is available having been ill last week, is an option, while Omari Hutchinson, Nathan Broadhead and Conor Chaplin present other alternatives to lead the line against Eddie Howe’s side tomorrow (3pm) at Portman Road.
“It’s pretty clear, we’ve probably got four or five people in the building, who have played as a striker,” McKenna said.
“There’s the more obvious ones, but Wes Burns has played as a striker as well, so we’ve got quite a few options there.
“Obviously Ali is the most natural forward that we have in the building in terms of the profile of striker that we usually play with, but we also know he’s short of match minutes for quite a long period.
“You’ve got other people, who can fill the role in slightly different positions. You look at last week, there was a lot of the game where Omari was in central positions and almost centre forward positions at times in the game.
McKenna added: “I think what’s important is we have different qualities within the squad. We know that we’re going to need different people to step up across the 96 minutes.
“I think it’s a game and it’s a sport now, to be honest, certainly at Premier League level, where it’s genuinely not necessarily about the team that starts being any more important than the team that finishes.
“We’ve got a team in mind to start the game, we’ve got a team in mind to finish the game. You try and pick balance across different qualities to start the game and balance across different qualities to finish the game, depending on the game state.
“We’ve looked at that over the last few days and we’ll try and give ourselves the best chance on Saturday.”
There are no new injury concerns for the Tractor Boys and attacker Sammie Szmodics is available having been ill last week.
Hirst and Axel Tuanzebe look set to be back in the squad during January.
Magpies midfielder Joelinton is serving a one-match ban after being booked for the fifth time this season during last weekend's win over Leicester City.