What Ian Watson has said about Rochdale's deepening injury crisis

Since pre-season, Watson’s attempts to implement his style of play have been hampered by a steady stream of players going down injured, with many of them long-term absences.

This week, they have suffered three fresh concerns – full-back Tobi Adebayo-Rowling was forced off at half-time during Tuesday’s 2-2 draw with Grimsby Town and replaced by midfielder Kane Taylor, who himself then needed to be substituted.

That came after striker Mani Dieseruvwe was missing from the squad altogether, with Watson detailing after the match that he had suffered a hamstring injury during Saturday’s defeat at Crewe Alexandra.

Those three takes the current number of absentees to 13, which raises fresh questions about why injuries seem to be unavoidable currently.

And while he says he is searching for answers, Watson admits he is currently at a loss to explain what is going on.

“The dampener on the feel to the end of the game is that we’ve suffered another couple of injuries tonight, and Mani’s injured as well,” he said in his interview with the club’s YouTube channel following Tuesday’s draw.

“We’re trying everything we possibly can to find out why this is happening – we’re doing everything possible.

“The facilities we have are amazing and the staff we have are amazing, and we’re not pushing the boys too much.

“We’re sticking to the GPS data – we actually come off it when we need to.

“We have to find out why it keeps happening because we’re down to the bare bones again.

“We have to make sure we recover the boys and make sure they’re ready to go again on Saturday.

“I wish I could put some positive spin on it but I can’t – it’s football and it is what it is. We have to deal with it.

“There’s loads of things going on in the world and people have real problems to deal with, and we’re a football club dealing with injuries so you take it in context.

“We have to find a way to make sure we can prevent this from happening and make sure we have our strongest XI out as much as we can.”

The irony of Dale’s latest blow is that Aston Villa loanee Taylor was taken out of the starting XI in order to reduce his risk of injury having started all but two league games since arriving at the club.

They will now await scan results for him as well as Adebayo-Rowling and Dieseruvwe, who suffered his injury during his cameo appearance off the bench at Crewe.

“Mani’s pulled his hamstring, so we have to wait for the scan to come back,” Watson said.

“We’ll see how KT is – he’s been amazing for us since coming in.

“He ran a lot of distance on Saturday, so we didn’t want to start him tonight because we thought the accumulation of his distance over the last two games might be too much for him.

“He had to come on at half time because Tobi is injured, and then he comes on and gets injured himself.”

Naturally, the prognoses on Dieseruvwe, Adebayo-Rowling and Taylor are yet to emerge.

The same is true for full-back Bryant Bilongo, winger Jonny Smith and forward Devante Rodney – Bilongo has been missing since the opening day with a hamstring issue, Smith has missed the past two games having been forced off during the win over Swindon Town earlier this month and Rodney has not featured since coming off the bench at Fleetwood Town last month.

Bilongo, Smith and Rodney appear the closest players to returning, with the timeframes on others more defined and, crucially, longer-term.

Goalkeeper Nils Ramming will miss the next 10 weeks with a torn calf while defender Laurence Maguire is around a month into his recovery from the same injury.

Captain Ethan Ebanks-Landell (unknown) is around a month away from completing the 10-week timeframe outlined for his return while midfielder Ryan East (fractured toe) looks set to be missing until around Christmas time.

There is no firm return date for Casey Pettit (knee) while his fellow midfielder Will Jenkins and defender Dan Moss are both out for the season with ACL injuries.