Town boss Gary O’Neil has a fully fit squad going into Saturday’s return to action at home to Fulham with only the suspended Abdul Fatawu unavailable, while the Blues manager is assessing how to utilise the players who returned late from international duty.

Fatawu is banned for one match having been red-carded in the final match before the three-week break for a second bookable offence.

“Abdul Fatawu is suspended from the Everton game, but everyone is fit, 100 per cent fitness, so all good,” O’Neil said. “Everyone is ready to go.

“Big praise to the fitness team and the medical department and the players for looking after themselves.

“We had a very good pre-season. You always worry a little bit when they go away on international duty that they might go into different training regimes and different styles of play and things, a lot of travel.

“But thankfully everyone has come back in good shape, so we’re 100 per cent ready to go tomorrow.”

Exequiel Palacios was in action with Argentina as recently as the early hours of Wednesday morning with other players similarly making late returns and O’Neil confirmed that that would come into his thinking ahead of his selection for Saturday’s game.

“It’s a consideration, I think,” he continued. “For every manager, I think that the lads that get back really late are always a consideration as to how far they’ve travelled, what the time difference is, how much they’ve played, whether they carry a bit more risk into the weekend, fitness-wise. So, we have a few decisions to make on that sort of stuff.

“But I’m used to that. The last few clubs I’ve been at, we’ve always had South Americans or people that have played a long way away, Africa, and travelled back, so nothing that I’m not used to, but we just need to make sure that we get the decisions right for tomorrow.”

He says Palacios is fine following his return from Buenos Aires after Lionel Messi’s final match for Argentina.

“He feels great, he feels good,” O’Neil said. “We’ve checked in on him, we did all we could with him, we got him back as quickly as we could. The club were excellent in organising that for him.

“He didn’t play loads either, so he feels OK. He feels ready to go, so I expect to see him on the football pitch tomorrow.”

Marcelino Nunez came back early from international with Chile, reportedly having fallen out with their interim-head coach and teammates.
“I don’t think there was a fallout,” O’Neil insisted. “He’s OK, he’s in good spirits, he’s delighted to be back, training well, back around the players here who think a lot of him.

“As far as I’m aware, all fine. Just know he was keen to get back and get training with the group and give himself the best chance to be ready for tomorrow, which he’s done.”

O’Neil says skipper Dara O’Shea is OK, despite an international break which saw him captain the Republic of Ireland in their first controversial Nations League game with Israel, before missing the second match as his wife was giving birth.

“He’s good, as you would expect Dara to be,” he said. “You guys know him probably better or as well as I do. He always gives you the feeling that he’s ready to go.

“Incredible guy, incredible professional, fantastic leader. Obviously, the international trip was more complicated than standard ones for him, but he navigated it well. Comes back in a good spot.

“Huge congratulations to him and his partner, Louise, for the birth of their child, Vayda. Incredible news for everybody. We had Ceddy [Kipre] and Dara both welcome new members to their family this week, so we all congratulated them on that.

“It’s a tight group, everyone gets on really, really well, so delighted for them both and hopefully we can have a really good weekend and then they can get themselves back and help out with some of the baby duties.”

Azor Matusiwa and Jack Taylor played minutes for the U21s during the break as they continued their comebacks after surgery at the end of last season.

“Both available,” O’Neil continued. “Jack played some important minutes for the U21s at Peterborough. He got some minutes in a friendly that we played [at Espanyol] the week before.

“Azor’s got a good amount of minutes and has looked good in training, so both are available to be in the squad tomorrow.”

Asked about the duo’s prospects of getting back into the first team, he added: “It’s up to them, it’s not up to me. They pick the team, not me. They decide who starts. Obviously I’ll go off what they make me feel. but they’re the ones in charge of what I feel.

“Azor knows he has to fight for his place, as everyone does. This is why we built the squad that we built because it needs to be that way.

“And there is a very slim chance that we’ll have too many weeks where everybody is fit. Obviously, hopefully we do.

“But I’m sure there will be a stage in this season where we have two or three injuries in the same position and the squad won’t look as deep as it looks right now.

“Everyone knows how important they are. It can be frustrating for players. I understand that, especially when you’re a player and your only focus really is how you’re doing and where your career’s heading. I’ve been there, I know what it feels like.

“I’m doing my best to make sure that they all understand how important they are to me and to the football club.

“There’s no way 11 players are going to get us where we need to get to this season. It’s going to be everybody.

“And I think almost everybody has played a part so far this year, if you include the cup games, everybody has played a part.

“That’s how it’s going to be. We’re going to need everyone. And Azor will be equally as important as everybody else.”

Photo: TWTD