Doncaster Rovers winger Jon Taylor ruled out for ‘at least a couple of months’

An ankle injury restricted the 29-year-old to just three appearances last season and he will now miss the start of the new campaign, Rovers’ boss Gary McSheffrey confirmed.

"Jon Taylor pulled his quad in training the other day,” McSheffrey said.

"It’s quite a bad one, so Jon will be missing for at least a couple of months.

"We’re gutted for him. He was just getting to a level where he was getting up to speed and was training well.”

Taylor played 45 minutes in Doncaster's first pre-season friendly against Armthorpe Welfare and trained throughout the following week before noticing the issue, McSheffrey added

"It turns out he’s got a thigh strain that’s going to be quite a long one (recovery).”

The player himself is said to be ‘gutted’ with the news.

"He says he’s not really in that much pain but the scan says it’s quite a bad one,” revealed McSheffrey.

"Sometimes these things happen when you have been out for such a long time and you start kicking balls again on a daily basis and training at a high intensity.

"We will get around him and make sure he comes back in a couple of months time raring to go and ready.”

McSheffrey confirmed striker Josh Andrews, who has joined on a sixth-month loan from Birmingham City, also picked up a quad injury in training.

He should be back fit within ‘seven to ten days’, however.

There is also encouraging news on Tom Anderson’s injury.

Rovers’ club captain has not played since December owing to a foot injury and, like Taylor, suffered a fresh setback in pre-season.

Last week it was revealed he will miss the first game of the new campaign away to Bradford City on Saturday, 30 July.

"Tom’s hopeful he’ll be back not too far into the season, a few games in hopefully,” McSheffrey said.

"It’s just really how he can cope with it and handle the pain threshold because they don’t want to do surgery on it.

"It’s a bit of a complicated one but they feel it can be managed without surgery, so that’s what we’ll do.”