Blackburn Rovers boss confirms huge injury blow in three-man update ahead of Leeds United clash
Leeds United head to Ewood Park for their third game in a week on Saturday.
Blackburn Rovers boss John Eustace has confirmed he will be without three players for Saturday’s Championship clash against Leeds United.
Daniel Farke’s Leeds are due at Ewood Park on Saturday afternoon as they look to record their third win in less than a week. Wednesday’s dominant 3-0 victory at home to Luton Town followed a far less comfortable 4-3 triumph at Swansea City on Sunday, with this weekend’s trip across the Pennines likely to closer reflect their previous away trip.
Rovers slipped out of the play-off places in recent weeks but have strung two wins together since the November international break, the latter an impressive 1-0 turnover of promotion hopefuls Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium. But joint top-scorer Andreas Weimann was a surprise absence for that midweek clash and Eustace has since confirmed he will also miss the visit of Leeds.
"Andi will be missing for a couple of weeks, unfortunately," Eustace told the Lancashire Telegraph. "He's been playing through a knee injury which people didn't know about. He's had that for four games and yesterday it swelled up a bit in training. We have decided there is no point risking it. We want to get him right so he's going to have a few weeks off.”
Forward Arnor Sigurdsson was hoped to return from a thigh injury after the international break but picked up a separate calf issue in training. He was pencilled in to possibly come back against Leeds but remains unavailable, as does goalkeeper Balazs Toth.
"Anor won't be available (for Leeds), he's going to be another couple of weeks," the Rovers boss added. “Unfortunately, he's going to be a bit longer than we'd initially hoped. He came back to training last Monday and he's broken down again and will be a little bit longer. Balasz got a kick on international break, he has sprained his ankle quite badly. He will be missing for at least another two weeks as well."
Blackburn did manage to avoid further selection issues during their hard-fought win at Middlesbrough, with three first-team regulars at risk of suspension. Lewis Travis, Todd Cantwell and Hayden Carter were all on four yellow cards ahead of that trip to the Riverside, with all avoiding a fifth and subsequent one-game ban.
Leeds pair Wilfried Gnonto and Joe Rodon also managed to avoid a fifth yellow card during Wednesday’s win over Luton, with Sam Byram the only slight concern from that evening. The full-back came off mid-way through the second-half, with Farke revealing a slight hamstring issue.
“Sam felt a little bit of a problem in his hamstring,” the Leeds boss said. “Hopefully he felt it early enough. We have to wait for the assessment, I hope it's not too serious because he was excellent.”