STEVE Cotterill has spoken of his delight at having Andy Gray back in the first team fold.

The Scotland international made his long-awaited return in the 3-1 loss at QPR on Saturday after over two months on the sidelines with a broken metatarsal.

And although Gray isn't back to his best yet, Cotterill said he was relieved to have his star striker back in the squad.

He said: "It's nice to get Andy (Gray) back involved.

"It's going to take a while for him to get back to where he was, we know that, but we thought it would give everybody a boost.

"I think it did, he's perhaps not quite there yet but we'll have to wait and see. We've had another x-ray done in the week and those bones (in his foot) look a lot healthier than they did in previous weeks.

And Cotterill admitted that Gray had to fight a new fitness blow to even be included in the QPR game.

He added: "Andy looked quite sharp in training on the Thursday but on the way down on the Friday he was actually sick on the train but went down there and went straight to bed."