Neil Redfearn says he will be mindful of the fact that his side face another game in quick succession when he selects the team for Wednesday night’s trip to Fulham (8pm).

The game could come too soon for duo Sam Byram and Rodolph Austin, who were both absent once again through injury for Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Nottingham Forest, while on-loan midfielder Granddi Ngoyi has featured for the Under-21s in a bid to step up his recovery.

"We’ve got Rudy Austin coming back, he’s not too far away and Sam Byram is getting back to where he needs to be – it’s healing now," Redfearn explained.

"Granddi Ngoyi played for the Under-21s on Tuesday at Palace. If he comes through that, we can maybe think about him for Saturday.

"We’ve got one or two people coming back, which is pleasing, because the midfield area has been an area where we’ve perhaps been a little bit short of cover in recent weeks.

"To be fair to the lads, they’ve battled on mindfully and we’ve rode our luck injury-wise with those that have been playing, but it’s pleasing to get some of them back."

The Craven Cottage trip falls right in the middle of Championship fixtures against Forest and Blackpool, meaning Redfearn will have a day less than the Seasiders, who were in action last night, to prepare for Saturday’s game.

"We’ve got to think about the fact that we’ve got another game on Saturday pretty quickly when we play on the Wednesday and not the Tuesday," said the head coach. "That’s going to come into our thinking.

"Then we’ll get the international break, which will be needed. There are a lot of lads who have played a lot of football.

"Then we’ll go into another run of games in the Easter period.

"We’re going to have to look at the players we’ve got and it’ll give us a chance to have a look at one or two others.

"But I don’t really want to dilute the run that we’re on and I want to respect the division. I want to finish strong.

"The message has still got to be that you’ve got to play well to get in. I don’t want to start upsetting the balance of that."