Birmingham City forward Jay Stansfield is highly uncertain to play against Leicester City on Friday night after appearing injured during the Blues’ Carabao Cup loss.
Stansfield, Birmingham’s leading goalscorer last season, has already netted three goals this campaign and would pose a significant challenge for City to handle at the King Power Stadium.
However, he suffered an injury after entering as a substitute during Birmingham’s surprising 1-0 defeat at home to Port Vale on Tuesday night.
This puts his participation in the starting lineup on Friday evening in question.
Birmingham manager and former City assistant coach Chris Davies said: “Jay had a little bit of a knock towards the end of the game and was limping.
“He’s being assessed by the medical department so I haven’t got the full extent of what exactly that is. We can’t add any more detail to it but he did take a knock.
“It was pretty much the last kick of the game. These things happen, this is football.
“It’s really unfortunate but we don’t know how severe it is. It’s something you can’t do too much about.”
It’s a crucial match for City, facing one of the teams expected to be a fellow promotion rival for the first time.
Birmingham, following their record-breaking promotion, have maintained their momentum in the second tier, with two victories and a draw from their three matches placing them fifth in the early table.
City are one point and two positions behind in seventh, but must enhance their performance significantly.
While they secured three points at Charlton last time out, they were lucky to do so, and grateful for Abdul Fatawu’s moment of brilliance and Jakub Stolarczyk’s reliable goalkeeping.