Cardiff's Jay Bothroyd has been booked five times this season

Cardiff City could be without Joe Ledley and Michael Chopra for Tuesday's trip to West Brom, a game for which striker Jay Bothroyd is suspended.

Ledley (groin) came off in Saturday's 1-0 win over Preston and Chopra had a stomach upset ahead of that win.

Bothroyd is out after being booked for the fifth time this season.

But Cardiff boss Dave Jones dismissed fears over Ledley's hip condition, saying similarly affected players have played on.

He cited ex-Bluebirds Roger Johnson and Warren Feeney as players to have suffered the sort of hip problem Ledley, 22, has complained of.

Jones said: "I said the other day that Roger played all last year, Feens played three-and-a-half years with it.

"Joe, if you put him on a scale of one to three and three being the worst, Joe's a stage one.

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"And Joe wouldn't play or any other player at this football club if they had an injury.

"If there's anything wrong with any player, no matter how small, if they can't play and they can't do their job then they come under the auspices of the medical team."

Jones says Ledley was asked on Friday if he was fit to face Preston and the player said "yes".

But following a week in which Ledley was publicly criticised by club chairman Peter Ridsdale over his form amid on-going contract negotiations, the player must now deal with a fresh injury.

He departed injured along with Anthony Gerrard (head cut) and Jones said: "Joe just rotated his groin and he couldn't carry on and with Anthony [Gerrard] the wound was too big and they couldn't close it so we made the decision to change him."

The Cardiff manager also said striker Michael Chopra suffered a stomach upset on the eve of the win over Preston and that players returning from injury showed character in difficult circumstances.

He said: "The players that stayed on were the ones we wanted to bring off and Chops was ill.

"He had diarrhoea all [Friday] evening so we got as much as we possibly could from him and then the lads came on and did superbly.

"We've had a pasting this week and maybe rightly so, but you've got to go out and show a lot of character and sometimes the result of winning ugly is just as pleasing as winning free-flowing.

"It wasn't as ugly as that, but I thought the conditions were getting worse as the game went on and the ball was flying off all over the place.

"But I felt it was a well-deserved victory from us."

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