A crowded Rotherham United treatment room just got even busier

Denzel Hall and Reece James were forced off during the 2-0 loss to Peterborough United and neither are expected to make Sunday's League One home clash with Mansfield Town.

The number of missing men against the Stags is likely to run into double figures.

”Reece had to come off at half-time with a hip-flexor issue,” said manager Matt Hamshaw minutes after the final whistle against Posh. “Denzel, I'm not too sure yet. I've just come out of the changing room to speak to you (the media). But it didn't look good. ”

The Millers were without top scorer Sam Nombe for the second match in succession as he recovers from an ”overstretched” hamstring.

He is the closest of all the injured players to returning. However, given his importance to the side and the need to protect him long term, his presence on Sunday is far from guaranteed.

“Sam is getting closer,” Hamshaw said. “If it had been the last game of the season, I'd have played him. But there are 22 games left and he's pivotal to everything that we do.”

Drop-zone Rotherham lost Dan Gore and Hamish Douglas in the build-up to the Peterborough contest and neither are expected to be back to face Mansfield.

Also in the treatment room are Josh Benson, Kian Spence and Josh Kayode while loanee Martin Sherif has gone back to parent club Everton. Another loan player, Luton Town's Thomas Holmes, isn’t being selected and is set to have his time in South Yorkshire cut short, although an official announcement confirming his departure has yet to be made.

When Hamshaw was asked if all of the missing players would be absent against Town, he replied: “It's probably looking like that, yeah.”

The casualty count meant that only four of the starters against Peterborough were men the boss had brought to the club in the last transfer window. The other seven were brought in by previous managerial regimes.