Sean Raggett's Rotherham United injury curse strikes again
SEAN Raggett is facing a long spell in the treatment room after being hit by another severe blow in his injury-plagued Rotherham United career.
The centre-half, who managed only 11 appearances in his first season with the Millers last term because of a knee problem, is now sidelined until nearly Christmas with a quad issue.
“It's a bad one, he's out for three months,” said manager Matt Hamshaw after the 31-year-old had missed last Saturday’s League One derby at Doncaster Rovers.
Raggett, who had been four matches into his comeback following last year's troubles, suffered a serious ‘Grade 3C’ tear in the Carabao Cup tie at Barnsley.
“He's a tough boy and I don't think he really realised he'd done it,” Hamshaw said. “He first felt it in the shower after the match. It shows his pain threshold is quite high. We sent him for a scan and then we got the worst bit of news.”
Rotherham are desperately short of centre-halves, with a couple of players leaving during the summer and new boy Lenny Agbaire suffering bone bruising in the early stages of the campaign.
“We've lost (Hakeem) Odoffin and (Cameron) Humphreys from last season,” Hamshaw said. “We've brought in Agbaire and he's out. Now Raggett has got injured again.
“A frustration is, all the injuries are happening in games. It's a tough thing. We'll regroup, re-focus and re-energise and go again.
“I feel for any player who's injured. We've got quite a lot of them at the minute. We're not in the business of feeling sorry for each other. We have to make sure we do everything we can to get them back on the pitch as soon as possible.”
The Millers also have players missing in other positions. Defeat in today's lunch-time kick-off left them in 18th spot and without a third-tier victory since August 2 opening day.
“It will be good when we can put our full team out,” Hamshaw said. “I haven't had the luxury of doing that yet. That's not an excuse, it's the truth.”
The boss described himself as “gutted” by this afternoon's result. Rotherham had as much of the game as Rovers did but the hosts scored the only goal through Owen Bailey before the break and also hit the woodwork twice.
“I'm down at the minute,” Hamshaw said. “There are positives but I'm hurting as much as anyone else. I felt for our fans, I wanted to give them something to cheer.”