Charlie Mulgrew and Darragh Lenihan have attracted attention this summer.
The fact both sat out the Blackburn defeat at Carlisle on Friday, the final ahead of Southend to kick off League One, could be viewed as suspect.
However, as Sheffield Wednesday-linked Mulgrew and Lenihan, courting Championship attention, were ‘carrying little knocks’ Tony Mowbray didn’t want to risk them against Carlisle.
Telling the Official Website both will hopefully be fit for Southend though as their quality would be missed if they sat out the curtain raiser.
‘They’re both carrying little knocks. We left them at home, we didn’t bring them. It’s important that they get themselves ready to train hopefully early in the week and we’ll see if they’re ready for the weekend. Fingers crossed they will be,’ the boss said.
Adding: ‘I think they’re important footballers for the club, not just their abilities, but their leadership qualities on the pitch and sometimes you need a team that has a desire not to lose. We had some good footballers on the pitch tonight in the defensive side of the team, but they probably don’t have the leadership qualities of the players that were missing.’
Two and two, especially when it comes to the experienced Mulgrew, who only has a year left on his Blackburn deal with an approach reportedly made by Sheffield Wednesday, will always be put together but, all being well, there genuinely wasn’t any more to this as Mowbray said.
Meanwhile, explaining the absence of summer signing Ben Gladwin, Mowbray said the midfielder was merely ‘carrying a knock’ himself too and would have played had it been a League One outing.
‘Ben’s carrying a knock as well. He was just a bit tight. I don’t see any problems there, it was just a decision that was made that we don’t need to bring them if they’ve got any issues at all. I think they probably would have all played if it had been a league game, but we don’t need to risk anybody.’
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