Kenny Tete and Carlos Vinicius could return from injury as Marco Silva contemplates shuffling his pack in tomorrow night’s League Cup tie at high-flying Ipswich Town.
Dutch international Tete has been missing since the narrow league win over Luton Town in mid-September having suffered a groin strain, whilst Brazilian forward Vinicius missed the draw with Brighton and Hove Albion on Sunday after picking up a knock in training. Silva confirmed that both players are available for selection for the trip to Portman Road for a tricky test at Portman Road. Issa Diop and Tosin Adarabioyo remain unavailable due to injury and, although Adama Traore is back in training, this fixture comes too soon in the former Wolves winger’s recovery.
Kieran McKenna’s Town have lost only one game since they won promotion from League One and are currently sitting in second place in the Championship after an excellent start to the season. Silva knows that the fourth round tie will prove tricky. He told his pre-match press conference this morning:
“Credit to them for what they have been doing. A team that was promoted to the Championship, and the way they have been playing, not just the results they’ve been achieving which have been great for their football club, but the way they have been doing it is really impressive.
All credit for the players, for the staff, for Kieran as well, because it’s not easy. I know the competition and I know really well what it means to be so consistent in a competition like the Championship, and they have been showing that. The way they have beaten a Premier League club in the last round showed their quality, showed how they have been playing. Their confidence is probably as high as possible, and it’s going to be tough for us.”
Silva admitted that he is likely to field a second string side in Suffolk with the Whites in action so soon after Sunday’s intense draw at the AMEX ahead of a Saturday lunchtime meeting with Manchester United at Craven Cottage.
“It probably can happen. It’s not something new for us, if you look at the last two games that we played in the Carabao Cup, we did it. We look at the competition as a really good competition for us to always do our best to go through. Our run in the Carabao has been really good.
We had two different games against Tottenham at home, where we did it really well, and against Norwich [it was] a proper Carabao Cup game, a tough game to play against Norwich where we did well. We want to keep in the competition. It’s going to be tough and we have to do our best to go through.”
