Jon Dahl Tomasson says Bradley Dack will be out ‘for a while’ after suffering a hamstring injury in the weekend win over Swansea City.
Dack had to be replaced just 13 minutes after coming on, signalling to the bench that he needed to come off after pulling up when trying to get on the end of a Sorba Thomas cross.
Rovers had already lost Ben Brereton to injury at this point, the top scorer feeling his hamstring after stretching to get on the end of a John Buckley delivery.
Brereton is a question mark for the game with Blackpool, but Dack has been ruled out until the March international break.
The 29-year-old had been taken off on the hour against West Brom, and then dropped to the bench against Swansea as Tomasson looked to manage his workload.
However, he suffered damage to his hamstring at the weekend and now faces a spell on the sidelines.
“Bradley, I’ve tried to take care of Bradley in this period,” said Tomasson.
“Unfortunately he’s injured and will be out for a while.
“I was very happy it wasn't his knee after his two terrible injuries, I tried to build him up and manage him and then he got that (injury).
“It’s disappointing for Bradley, and the team, because he’s done well.
“It will be some weeks until we get him back.
“How long, it’s difficult to say, but he will be gone for a while.
“It’s not a torn hamstring but there’s damage to the muscle.”
Dack had started every Championship game until being rested at the weekend.
He was turned to in the 72nd minute with the score at 0-0, with Tomasson admitting he had resisted the temptation to send on the seven-goal attacker before that.
“When you’re coming back and you get injured like that, I think it’s normal to be disappointed.
“I feel for Bradley in that way.
“We can’t change it and we need to try and get him back as quickly as possible and focus on the players that we have.”
Top scorer Brereton had already been replaced when Dack suffered his injury, with doubts over his involvement against Blackpool
Tomasson added: “We have a couple of question marks within the squad.
“Ben is a doubt for the game tomorrow.”
A positive for Rovers is that Joe Rankin-Costello is back available having missed out at the weekend.
Rankin-Costello picked up an injury in the second half at The Hawthorns which made him unavailable against Swansea.
He had been a regular in the side prior to that however, and Tomasson said: “Joe is back, he’s done a really good job playing as a full back and playing in midfield in possession, a dynamic way of playing.
“We of course are monitoring players in games, in training, how far are they running, acceleration, sprints, how many high intensity runs do the boys have, and then we make a decision on their load over a period of time.
“We all know that this group is a little bit stretched, not the biggest squad.
“We all know that we can’t change that, we know that, we know about the transfer market, we can’t change, so I focus on the things that I can focus on and that’s the players that are fit.”
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