Yahoo News Birmingham City promotion rivals suffer serious injury blow as they struggle to keep pace
Birmingham City's League One rivals - and Tuesday night's opponents - Huddersfield Town will be without first-choice goalkeeper Lee Nicholls for between 10 and 12 weeks after the stopper suffered an injury to his elbow ligaments.
Goalkeeper Nicholls has been first choice since arriving at the club from MK Dons in the summer of 2021 and he helped the Terriers to reach the Championship play-off final in his first year at the club. Having remained following relegation last season, Nicholls has continued to start at the beginning of this campaign.
He's set for a stint on the sidelines, however, having suffered an elbow ligament injury earlier this year but having managed it - up until Saturday when, in the warm up ahead of their meeting with Reading, he landed awkwardly when making a save and was unable to play. It transpires that he'll undergo an operation this week and it will sideline him for as long as three months.
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"Not great," manager Michael Duff revealed, when asked for an update on Nicholls. "Lee has been playing with a damaged ligament in his elbow and it got to a point on Saturday where he has made a save in the warm up...it requires surgery and he's booked in this week. We think it'll be ten to twelve weeks. It's not what we need, but it is what it is."
Duff is hoping to arrest a run of three straight defeats when Town visit St Andrew's; having beaten Bolton 4-0 a couple of weeks ago, they've since lost to Blackpool, Northampton Town and, on Saturday, Reading. Duff isn't under any illusions of the challenge ahead.
"There's a good feel around the place," he said of Blues. "It's sold out every week. Lots is made of the outside noise, but from a playing point of view it's a brilliant game - you want to be involved in big games in front of full houses, it's what you aspire to when you're a kid. It's going to be a tough place. They're unbeaten. They've got some good players, it's a real challenge."
