Charlie Mulgrew suffered the latest of his injury setbacks since joining Blackburn when he was forced off against Birmingham last week.
His groin injury forced him to miss the FA Cup win over Blackpool on Saturday but ahead of the tie Owen Coyle revealed positive news on the Scottish international as he’s not as badly injured as feared.
Mulgrew had reacted well to treatment with Coyle – ahead of the 2-0 win at Ewood Park – telling the Official Website.
‘The extent of the injury for Charlie isn’t as serious as first thought. He has responded quite well to working from the medical department this week and there may be a chance that he’ll be available for the league games coming up.
If he continues to react well to treatment he could even return to the squad for the Championship meeting with Leeds on Wednesday. Failing that he should be available to face QPR at the weekend.
There wasn’t ever going to be any risk against Blackpool though.
‘We are hoping that he is available for Leeds, if not, then we are certainly hoping to have him for Queens Park Rangers, so time will tell on that. But we certainly won’t take any chance with regard to the cup game on Saturday.’
With Mulgrew having a history of injury – but knowing his body well – the fact he didn’t push it when he felt the problem against Birmingham probably saved him from being sidelined for anything up to six weeks.
Coyle finished.
‘Charlie is a very experienced player and he knows his body and he knew that when he felt a little tweak that if he’d have carried on then he could have put himself out for up to six weeks. It is never nice to lose a player of that quality for any game but I think he did the right thing.’
Unfortunately Mulgrew does appear to be a footballer that’s going to be constantly troubled by injury with it a case of managing him correctly and – as Coyle has – trusting the Scot to know his body and what it’s telling you.
