Nothing To Worry About

Blackburn Rovers Manager Gary Bowyer insists that we can’t read too much into the fact that five first-team players missed our opening pre-season friendly on Saturday.

We might’ve used twenty-two different players against AFC Telford United at the New Bucks Head Stadium (with Bowyer naming a different eleven for each half), however, Tommy Spurr, Jason Lowe, Paul Robinson, Chris Brown and Corry Evans all missed this 4-0 win.

The Rovers Manager insists that they missed out due to “minor knocks” and it wasn’t anything more of less than this and definitely isn’t anything sinister (like any could be moving on). With it only a pre-season friendly there really wasn’t any merit to taking any risks.

Bowyer to The Official Website: “Tommy has a niggle, Lowey had a sore toe, same with Chris Brown, he just had a bit of soreness. So whilst you’d like to get 45 minutes there’s no point risking them any further.

“Corry is just coming back so he’s just had a fitness day, same with Paul Robinson, he stayed at Brockhall. We’ve three goalkeepers so we let him stay there and get some fitness work in as well.“

This match was won with all four goals scored in the second half with the goalscorers coming from players that you’d expect to play little to no part in the 2014-2015 season for Rovers, that’s some will even be at Ewood Park in August? Leon Best, two from Ruben Rochina and Jack O’Connell got on the scoresheet.

As well as those that missed the match through injury Bowyer will have Alex Baptiste added to his squad as well as David Dunn and Markus Olsson back after the Bolton Wanderers defender joined on loan on Friday with the latter two agreeing new contracts with us for next season.

Bowyer’s confirmed all will be fit and these players will be joining the squad heading to Portugal on Monday as pre-season continues.

He added: “They’ll go to Portugal on Monday and we expect them to be training on Monday.

“We are taking a big squad, we’ll of course have Alex Baptiste who joined us on Friday, along with David Dunn and Markus Olsson.“