Ipswich Town captain Sam Morsy is suspended for the trip to Arsenal. _(Image: Steve Waller)_
Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna says he has options to replace suspended captain Sam Morsy for Friday night's Premier League game at Arsenal (8.15pm, Amazon Prime).
Morsy picked up his fifth booking of the season in Saturday's 4-0 home defeat to Newcastle and will now serve a one-game ban.
Kalvin Phillips made his first appearance since being sent off against Leicester back on November 2 when coming on as a second half sub against the Magpies.
Jack Taylor impressed on his full Premier League debut, against Bournemouth, earlier this month and followed that up with a late winner, off the bench, at Wolves.
Massimo Luongo, meanwhile, hasn't got on the field since a late cameo in the 2-1 win at Tottenham in late November.
Kalvin Phillips is available again following a spell sidelined with an ankle injury. _(Image: PA)_
On who he will pick to partner Jens Cajuste in midfield, McKenna said: “We’ve got a couple of options, which you need.
“Massimo (Luongo) has been ill over the last week or two, so we’ll have to assess how he is.
“It was good to get Kalvin (Phillips) on the pitch during the second half of the Newcastle game. That was important. He’s still kind of working his way back. He had a better week last week with his ankle, he didn’t feel anything from the game and he trained well today (Christmas Eve). I guess '100%' will be when he’s got a few more games under his belt, but the ankle issue he had is much better.
"Jack had a good game against Bournemouth, of course. Neither are necessarily like-for-like replacements for Sam, but they can hopefully bring their own strengths to it."
Axel Tuanzebe (hamstring), Chiedozie Ogbene (Achilles) and George Hirst (knee) all remain sidelined, but six-goal topsorer Liam Delap is available again after serving a one-game ban.
“He was a loss (against Newcastle), no doubt about it," admitted McKenna. "He was always going to be and so it panned out.
“It’s important to have to him back. We’re going to need his strengths in the game."
Confirming his players will train on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day, the Blues boss said: “We gave them a bit of a longer weekend off, but now it’s a proper flow through to the Arsenal game. These sort of games don’t come around many times in a career, so we want to give ourselves the absolute best chance of making the most of it.
“The group’s trained well today and we’ll be in over the next three days preparing as well as we can."