Blackburn Rovers Injury List Eases but Ito Deal Falls Through
Tony Mowbray believes Blackburn Rovers’ crippling injury list is finally starting to ease – but the move for free agent Ryotaro Ito is all but dead.
Rovers went into Tuesday night’s 2-1 home defeat to Sheffield United without a recognised centre-forward, forced to push Jayden Fevrier into a false nine role with Andri Gudjohnsen sidelined. The reshuffle underlined how stretched Mowbray’s squad has been, with Mathias Jorgensen and Yuki Ohashi also ruled out for several more weeks.
Gudjohnsen had carried the load early on, clocking 418 minutes across Blackburn’s first five matches. Then he joined the queue in the treatment room.
Now, at last, there is a hint of relief.
Injuries easing at last
Mowbray confirmed Gudjohnsen returned to training on Thursday and could feature against Millwall at Ewood Park on Saturday (15:00 BST), a timely boost for a side short of cutting edge.
The manager is also hopeful that Moussa Baradji will be fit enough to make his first appearance of the season from the bench.
“It’s starting to improve and starting to get better,” Mowbray told BBC Radio Lancashire, welcoming the sight of senior bodies back on the grass.
“It would be nice to have some more senior players to try and change a game late on as opposed to hoping a young boy comes on and does something quite special.”
The comment cut to the heart of Blackburn’s current reality: too many kids asked to do too much, too soon.
Ito deal stalls
Off the pitch, one potential solution appears to have slipped through their fingers.
Rovers were close to signing Japan midfielder Ryotaro Ito, who spent last season in Belgium. The 28-year-old was even at the club on Monday as talks progressed.
Then everything stalled.
“I’m not really sure what’s happened,” Mowbray admitted. “At this moment there’s nothing happening.
“I genuinely don’t know but, my experience would suggest to me that it’s not going to happen now.
“I don’t know why it didn’t happen. I asked for help a few weeks ago and the club are trying to put some players in the building to help us.”
The pursuit of Ito had promised extra creativity and experience in the middle of the pitch. Now Mowbray is braced to head into a key run of fixtures without that reinforcement.
Pressure building before Millwall
Results have sharpened the mood. Blackburn have taken just one point from their past four games and sit four points – and 10 places – behind eighth-placed Millwall.
The performances, Mowbray insists, have not always matched the scorelines.
“We know we need to find a result, we can’t keep thinking the team is playing quite well but we’re getting beat again or drawing again,” he said.
“I think we are better than the results have suggested the last couple of games and deserved more from them, but the reality is you have to win matches and get points.”
Millwall arrive as an early-season marker. With injured forwards trickling back, but Ito seemingly gone, Blackburn face a simple question now: can they turn the promise Mowbray sees into points before the table starts to harden?
