Bristol City injury update vs Ipswich Town: Wells, Vyner and Atkinson latest

Nigel Pearson says Bristol City will not have any injured players back for their clash against Ipswich Town on Wednesday night, but hinted that Nahki Wells could return for their Severnside derby match against Cardiff City on Saturday.

Kal Naismith, Joe Williams, Zak Vyner, Rob Atkinson and Wells are all sidelined for City, which has seen several players forced to play out of position of late.

Mark Sykes filled in at right back against Coventry City on Saturday, while veteran midfielder Andy King slotted in at centre back. The clubs injury woes also saw several teenagers make the substitues bench.

“We’ll be as we were at the weekend in terms of the squad,” Pearson added. “We’ve looked very closely at the players over the last couple of days and at least we have one extra day from the weekend to recover, which is good in that sense, but we then have a quick turnaround before we then go to Cardiff.

“We’ll probably be a bit more optimistic about Nahki. The others aren’t going to be in the frame, although Zak’s warmed up with his teammates today, Rob Atkinson’s been training with us quite regularly recently and looks good. So hopefully in the next few weeks, we’ll probably get him some time in one of the U21 games, which will be good for him.”

The Robins also have a couple of long term injuries. Ayman Benarous hasn’t featured for the senior side in over 18 months, while summer signing Ross McCrorie is yet to play for the club after a bacterial infection meant he needed surgery.

Though the Scot will not be back in action in the foreseeable future, the manager gave an encouraging update on his situation: “Ross McCrorie’s making positive progress but, again, I don’t think there’s anything to get overly excited about.

“I’m really pleased that he looks totally different, he’s moving well, he’s obviously a lot more positive now his problem has been dealt with, and what that indicated for us is that he’s moving in the right direction, but it’s still early days and I don’t see any reason to change what we previously talked about, sort of January or February time.”