Huddersfield Town chief Danny Cowley handed four injury blows ahead of Birmingham City clash, with Tommy Elphick ruled out for the season

Danny Simpson, Jaden Brown and Tommy Elphick are all sidelined as the Terriers prepare for their first home game in almost a month.

Elphick was forced off during Town's 3-1 defeat at Preston North End and surgery has revealed cruciate ligament damage to his knee, ruling him out for the remainder of the season.

Simpson sustained a hip problem at Preston before being withdrawn on the hour mark and hasn't been able to train since.

Campbell is struggling with a hamstring strain, which forced him to miss Huddersfield's last outing, while Brown is ruled out by an ankle problem.

Town manager Danny Cowley was disappointed that the tackle which has ended Elphick's campaign didn't result in a harsher punishment.

"Tommy Elphick will be a big loss to us not only on the pitch but off the pitch as well," said Cowley.

"So to lose him to what is a cruciate knee injury, that is going to be a long-term injury.

"I am disappointed for him because we think a lot of him and you never like to see your players go through this type of situation.

"We all saw the tackle that led to it. It was a pretty reckless challenge.

"We are disappointed that at the time that it wasn't dealt with more severely and it just shows you what can happen if those type of tackles take place."

Cowley added: "Danny picked up a hip injury and wanted to play on, we were aware of it at half time.

"He is the type of boy that didn't want to leave his team in a difficult moment but we decided on 60 minutes that we needed to try and protect him.

"He hasn't been able to train since, so we anticipate we will be without three of our back four."

Huddersfield will be bolstered by the return of Jonathan Hogg, however, after the midfielder missed the trip to Preston through suspension.

Cowley said: "Jonathan Hogg is one of those players that for the uneducated eye, they don't know what they have got until they haven't got it.

"Anyone that watched the Preston game will have seen what a loss he was to the group.

"He is a fighter and has a huge amount of determination and resilience and for me typifies what we want to be as a football club."

Tomorrow's clash marks the start of a tough run for the Terriers as they face four of the current top six in their next five fixtures.

Huddersfield spent the international break on a warm weather training camp in Dubai and Cowley is convinced that no side has worked harder than his over the last two weeks.

"This is going to be a tough period for us now, let's not hide away from it," Cowley added.

"It was already a tough job but now we have got some key injuries which has made the job in front of us even tougher.

"We are going to need everybody. It is not going to be perfect.

"And there are going to be moments were it might not be as pleasing on the eye as we would like it to be."

Birmingham have scored 16 goals in 16 outings this term, only Middlesbrough and Wigan Athletic, with 13 each, have scored less.

Despite the Blues' miserly return in front of goal, Cowley is expecting the visitors to adopt a positive approach at the John Smith's Stadium tomorrow.

Cowley said: "I think they are a positive team and they play quite quickly into [Lukas] Jutkiewicz.

"They are able to be quite progressive, particularly in the middle third. And they have a lot of good technical players.

"We are well aware of the threats that Birmingham bring but we are at home and we always want to be progressive and purposeful at home."