Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna has opted to bring Sammie Szmodics back into his starting line-up against Newcastle United (3pm) as his central striker in place of the suspended Liam Delap.
Szmodics, last season’s Championship top goalscorer with 27 for Blackburn Rovers, was ruled out of last Saturday’s 2-1 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers through illness but comes back in one enforced change.
Delap was shown a yellow card - taking him to five for the season to trigger a one-match suspension - leaving McKenna with a big dilemma.
With George Hirst out injured, Ali Al-Hamadi, who was playing for AFC Wimbledon in League Two at the start of the year, was the only out-and-out striker available to him with the Iraqi international having been building up his match fitness from the bench following summer surgery denying him a pre-season.
But it is Szmodics, who came through the ranks at Colchester United, and is a predominantly attacking midfielder or wide forward or takes Delap’s place in the starting line-up.
The only other change to the 20 at Wolves comes on the bench with centre-back Jacob Greaves replacing home-grown Luke Woolfenden.
Newcastle boss Eddie Howe also makes one enforced change from both last Saturday’s 4-0 home Premier League win against Leicester City and Wednesday’s 3-1 victory against visiting Brentford in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals. The suspended Joelinton is replaced in central midfield by former Arsenal player Joe Willock.
Town go into the ‘Sir Bobby Robson derby’ as it has been termed with his two former clubs meeting, sitting 18th in the table and two points from safety while the Magpies lie 12th but just five points off a Champions League spot.
Ipswich Town: Muric, H Clarke, O'Shea, Burgess, Davis, Cajuste, Morsy (C), Burns, Chaplin, Hutchinson, Szmodics. Subs: Walton, Phillips, Taylor, Al-Hamadi, Johnson, Townsend, Greaves, Broadhead, J Clarke.
Newcastle United: Dubravka, Livramento, Schar, Burn, Hall, Guimaraes (c), Tonali, Willock, Murphy, Isak, Gordon. Subs: Vlachodimos, Trippier, Barnes, Targett, Osula, Almiron, Kelly, Longstaff, Miley.
Referee: Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire).
VAR: John Brooks.