Connor Wickham faces a fight to get back in the Ipswich Town team following his return from injury.

DAMIEN Delaney, Mark Kennedy and Connor Wickham, be warned!

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There is no guarantee that, when these three instrumental players return to full fitness in the next few weeks, they are going to walk straight back into the Ipswich Town first team.

Manager Roy Keane may be concerned by the lack of options on his substitutes’ bench, with his senior squad currently fleshed out with inexperienced youngsters such as Jamie Griffiths, Tom Eastman, Reggie Lambe, Jack Ainsley and Ronan Murray.

But the Irishman has no qualms with his starting XI. Town are third in the table, level on points with leaders QPR and Cardiff, and none of those 11 players deserve to be dropped at the moment.

Centre-half Delaney will find it difficult to dislodge Tommy Smith, left-back Kennedy faces stiff competition from Celtic loanee Darren O’Dea, and Wickham might have to bide his time to nudge out either Tamas Priskin or Jason Scotland.

Keane revealed: “We’ve got Damien and Kennedy and Connor coming back, but the players have said to me today – listen, are you going to change this team?

“It’s the players who pick the team at the football club, not the manager. I’ve said that many times.

“The big plus for me is that last year we had to rush players back, absolutely no doubt about it. We were forced to play players just coming back from injury, David Norris being a prime example.

“He’d been at our club injured for four months, and we throw him straight into a game. Our fitness coaches were going beserk with that one.

“But we are now in a position where we can to say to these boys - can they get back into the team?

“If these boys are on my bench in two or three weeks time, then we are doing OK.”

– Full story in today’s EADT.