Regis Le Bris will continue to use the next two matches as an opportunity to manage his squad in an attempt to ensure his key players are as fit as possible for the start of the play-offs next month.
Bellingham has missed the last two matches because of a minor injury issue sustained in the win at West Brom that Le Bris attributed to the midfielder’s heavy workload over the course of the season.
The England Under-21 international was given some time away from training, but returned to the Academy of Light earlier this week and is set to be on the bench at Ashton Gate on Friday. Provided he comes through his intended substitute outing without any issues, he is expected to return to the starting side for the Easter Monday home game with Blackburn.
Cirkin will not be involved in the squad for Friday’s game against Bristol City, but the full-back will step up his training schedule at the end of this week as he completes his recovery from his latest hamstring problem, and should be on the bench for the Blackburn game.
“Jobe will be available,” said Le Bris, whose side will mathematically guarantee themselves a top-four finish if they take anything from Friday’s game. “He probably won’t be a starter at Bristol, but he will be available. It was important for him to recover properly.
“Dennis will hopefully be back on Monday. I don’t think he will be a starter, but we will see if we can give him a short period of time off the bench. We will see on that one.
“Leo (Hjelde) is [fully] available again. Salis (Abdul Samed) is back. A little bit later we will also have Dan Ballard back in training.”
Enzo Le Fee has been eased back into action in the last few weeks, appearing as a substitute against West Brom, Norwich and Swansea.
Le Bris is now satisfied with the Roma loanee’s fitness levels, and is likely to start at least one of the games over the Easter weekend.
“Enzo, I think, is okay now,” said Le Bris. “We know that he can really help the team because he is a very talented player, and well connected with the team.
“We didn’t want to rush the process, maybe he could have started against Swansea and the output of the game would have been different, but we want to build gradually and this was the right decision.”
