Ipswich Town: Brandon Williams returns to Manchester United

The 23-year-old produced some impressive performances back in October, scoring a fine solo goal against Preston, but he's made just three league starts since then - repeated illnesses and 'knocks' having been given as reasons for his absences along the way.

“Brandon’s in Manchester at the moment, he’s gone back to Manchester United,” revealed McKenna.

“He’s had a period of injuries originally and then more recently illness, so he’s spent this week back there getting assessed by their medical team and won’t be with us for tomorrow (home game against Sunderland).

“After that, it will have to be a conversation and hopefully he’s fit and available and can come back and we can get back to the Brandon Williams that we had through October and November."

Asked what the injuries Williams has had were, McKenna replied: “He’s had various things. He’s had a couple of different little contact knocks, he had a soft tissue issue and he’s had some illness as well, so he’s getting assessed by their medical team.”

Ipswich currently have four loan players (Williams, Omari Hutchinson, Lewis Travis and Jeremy Sarmiento), can only name five in a matchday squad and may need to use the loan market to strengthen in the striker department.

Pressed on whether he wants the Williams loan to continue, McKenna said: “That would be our desire. I think we saw little bits of what he can offer towards his best in the autumn time, but we haven’t had that for a period of time now.

“We’ll have to make the judgement call, alongside his parent club as well, about what’s going to be the best for the second half of the year.”

Leif Davis has missed the last three games with a calf strain. (Image: Stephen Waller)

Full-back is an area of the squad that has been hit by injuries recently. Influential left-back Leif Davis has been sidelined since Boxing Day with a calf strain, Harry Clarke has sat out two of the last three due to ongoing Achilles issues, while Janoi Donacien hasn't played since early November due to groin problems.

“Leif and Harry Clarke were both on the grass today, so that’s a positive,” said McKenna.

“We’ll have to make decisions towards Saturday really, seeing how they respond, whether they’re available for minutes or not.

“But both of them are doing much better and both of them were out there today.”

On Donacien, the Blues boss said: “He’s not training and he’s been a big loss. On the pitch, he’s got really good attributes for us and around the group as well.

“He’s got an ongoing groin issue. He’s currently in the middle of another bout of injections which will hopefully help it. I think he’s got the last of those next week, then there’ll be another attempt to return to training after that.”

Town will be without captain Sam Morsy tomorrow as he starts a two-game ban for picking up 10 bookings. Lewis Travis, recently signed on loan from Blackburn, looks set to make his debut.

Striker Kayden Jackson limped off in the New Year's Day draw at Stoke and was an unused sub at AFC Wimbledon last weekend.

“He went off at Stoke with a hip flexor (issue)," explained McKenna. " I thought he was performing well in the game and giving the team a really good outlet.

“He felt his hip flexor in that game. Thankfully, it was scanned afterwards and it wasn't too major, so he was able to come on the bench for the AFC Wimbledon game, but when we didn’t need to use him that game we weren’t going to with the issue that he had. But he’s trained this week.”