Todd Cantwell, who missed the defeat against Bristol City, is expected to return to Blackburn Rovers against Preston North End, according to John Eustace.
Cantwell injured his calf against Coventry City and was forced to withdraw from the squad during Friday’s training session. It was supposed to be a minor issue, and there is optimism he will be available for Friday’s game at Ewood Park.
Rovers have plenty of others in the’red zone’, with Owen Beck unable to start against the Robins, necessitating a change of formation. Eustace disclosed that Andi Weimann, who scored the equaliser, is also suffering from a hamstring injury.
“Toddy, yesterday, regrettably, received a blow to his calf on Tuesday and couldn’t shake it off.
“Hopefully, he will participate on Friday. We’ll have to watch how he comes in on Monday.
“Owen Beck is really struggling right now. From a physical standpoint, the sports science team estimated that we’d get about 20 minutes out of him.
“Obviously, we’ve thrown him in for the last 20 minutes; he’s a key player for us. Not having him start made it easy to switch to a back three, given we only have Hedgey as the second left-footed player. I think the adjustment in shape worked wonderfully.
“That’s why we had to rest Owen today, too. He’s played a lot of games for such a young youngster now.
“He’s obviously in the red zone. Andi Weimann is fighting with his hamstring again, but has really turned up. And you may witness his quality at the perfect moment and location again today.
“There are a lot of players who are going through the red zone at the moment, but they’re fully committed to the football club and each other.”
Callum Brittain and Danny Batth began despite being substituted against Coventry. Joe Rankin-Costello also appeared on the bench.
“No, we certainly didn’t,” Eustace said when asked if he anticipated them to be fit.
“Both of them trained on Friday, and once they were reassured by the scan results, they couldn’t wait to play.” You can see Danny; he is a true warrior.
“He is currently going through a lot from a physical standpoint. And he’s doing exceptionally well. And Callum definitely had a lot of back problems and anxious stress down his hamstrings. When he realised it wasn’t a burden, he couldn’t wait to get started as well.
“I think it just reflects the players’ attitudes.” They took some hard knocks on Tuesday, and we had four scans on Thursday.
“When it showed that it was just minor injuries, they all put their hand up and they wanted to play. If we had the luxury to rest them or rotate them around, we would have done that. But again, the boys have run through brick walls again for us today.”
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