Kieran McKenna confirms Ipswich Town blow ahead of Stoke City | OneFootball

Ipswich have been without their ten-goal star Jaden Philogene for almost two months, which has hampered some their automatic promotion push this term.

Ipswich Town's automatic promotion hopes suffered a blow at the weekend, as they were forced to settle for a point in a 1-1 draw against Leicester City.

The Tractor Boys dominated large parts of the game at Portman Road on Saturday, but couldn't find the much-needed winner to keep themselves in touch with second-placed, Middlesbrough.

One player that Ipswich could have benefitted from having available for the game against the relegation-threatened Foxes was Jaden Philogene. The winger has been hugely impressive for Ipswich this season, having netted ten goals in 26 appearances in all competitions.

However, the former Aston Vila youngster has been out of action since hobbling off injured in a 3-0 win over Blackburn Rovers back in January.

McKenna and the Ipswich Town supporters will be eager to see Philogene return to the squad at the earliest of opportunities, as he's been a key player for them this term, and their promotion chances could depend on whether fit and firing for the Tractor Boys.

McKenna issues Philogene update

Speaking in a pre-match press conference ahead of Ipswich's clash with Stoke, Kieran McKenna issued an update on Philogene's fitness, and it was promising news ahead of the promotion run-in.

“He won’t be involved for this game. Hopefully, he’ll start team training this week.

“He’s working with the coaching staff a little bit now, but not with the rest of the team, so hopefully he’ll get back to that level again now at some point this week.”

“It’d be great to have Jaden back. We have good players in those positions, but you’re always going to miss someone with Jaden’s quality and the different qualities that he brings to the role, so it would be great to have him back."

Ipswich boss makes worrying injury admission ahead of Stoke clash

“You look at the fixture list, and, of course, after yesterday [Southampton beating Fulham in the FA Cup], there’s another game to be rearranged, so we know how demanding the schedule is going to be and we’re going to need lots of options, availability being really good, and lots of quality to get the results that we want.”

McKenna also revealed that he has some fresh injury worries ahead of the clash with the Potters, which will be a concerning update for the Portman Road faithful to hear ahead of another important game.

“We have a few issues from the game on Saturday, it’s still early on Monday morning, so a few will be assessed today.

“We may not have as strong an availability as we have for the last couple of games, but we won’t know that until certainly we get through the back of today.”

Ipswich find themselves fourth in the Championship table, and are five points adrift of the automatic promotion places with 11 games remaining in their 2025/26 league campaign.

If McKenna's side are to keep their automatic promotion dreams alive, then they simply have to be picking up three important points against a Stoke side that have found momentum hard to come by in the second-half of this season.