IN A fortnight when Paul Lambert is looking to finalise his Blackburn Rovers summer transfer plans, a midfielder with the club in his heart is edging closer to a first appearance under the new Ewood boss.

Truth be told Lambert isn’t so new around Brockhall any more, he’s already clocked up 25 games in the dugout, but the return of Jason Lowe, who has spent 12 years at the club, is going to feel like a new signing for the Scot.

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And it certainly feels like a new start for Lowe, as the Leigh-born academy graduate bids to put two years of injury hell behind him.

By the age of 22 Lowe had already clocked up 132 senior games averaging 41 games a term, almost all of them starts.

In the past two injury-hit years just 18 appearances have been added to that total, and only four this season, as his busy start to a career has been brought to a shuddering halt.

Lowe has swapped the dressing room for the waiting room over the past two seasons, undergoing two operations on a foot injury to try to eradicate a painful problem.

Now pain free, the 24-year-old has played two games for Rovers Under-21s, 45 minutes in the first and an hour in the second, and is now keen to show the new man what he’s been missing out on.

“Being inside the gym and the physio room is never great, but I’ve got confidence in my own ability and what I’m about so I’m going to get back out there, give it what I’ve got and if the manager wants to play me I’m available,” said Lowe, whose first senior appearances came in a seven-game loan spell at Oldham in 2011.

The former England under-21 international said the foot that had wrecked the last years of his career was now ‘as good as it’s felt’.

He added: “It’s probably my third quite extensive and long injury, but I’m feeling good and I’m on the right track.

“Hopefully I’m over the nightmare and I can just enjoy my career now going forward.

"Hopefully the long injuries are, touch wood, behind me.”

So is there now a determination to make up for lost time? Almost two years of a career that was promising an awful lot before the pause button was hit?

“A little bit,” reveals Lowe. “I played a lot of games before I was injured but I’ve missed a lot of football through the injury.

“I’m fortunate in a sense that it’s not muscular or anything like that, it has been the recurrence of a bone so you just have to manage things a bit differently and let the body heal it, and that’s what we’ve done this time, we’ve been extra cautious and the rehab has gone really well.

“The [last two years] have been tough, mentally especially, but I’ve got on with it, it’s all part and parcel of the game.

“I’ve got 10 to 12 years hopefully left in the game, I focused on that rather than what’s happening now.

“I just took it day by day and did what I had to on a daily basis. Come in, do my work, go home, rest up, then do it again the day after and the day after.

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel now and I can get back on the pitch and get back playing.”

The stories of players struggling with rehab from long injuries are countless.

While the physical work might not be a problem for them, the mental side of hitting the gym while their teammates go out to train and play can be tough.

“The mental side is massive, especially the amount of time I’ve been out,” said Lowe, whose Rovers debut came at Stamford Bridge not long after he had turned 19.

“Some people can’t handle that side of it, they’re not used to being injured and they don’t know how to handle it.

“When you’re playing it’s a great feeling, you’re fit and healthy and in front of thousands of people every week.

“When you’re suddenly brought out of that you don’t get the buzz and the adrenalin and some people don’t know how to deal with that. It’s tough.

“That’s the aspect of it you miss the most, being out there under the pressure and under the lights.

“Hopefully I’ve done enough work now to put it back in my body.

"I feel great, the foot feels good and I’m just going to keep ticking the boxes.”

The next box to tick is a return to the first-team picture, something Lowe hopes he can achieve before the curtain comes down on this season in May.

“Definitely,” he said of targeting a comeback before the end of the campaign. “I think there’s eight games left now, when we go back it’s almost April and I know there’s a final game in May, depending on how well we do of course, let’s not leave ourselves out of it (the play-offs) until it’s mathematically impossible.

“Personally I’m really looking forward to getting back in there. I’m excited about how the lads are playing.

“The new manager has come in, I’ve worked with him briefly and I like the way he works so hopefully I can get back in there and get back playing.

“It’s a clean state for everybody to state their claim to play.”

Lambert has liked what he has seen of Lowe in training, but he is now challenging him to take that on to the pitch when his first-team return does arrive.

The Ewood boss has reshuffled his midfield since he arrived, with Jordi Gomez, Matt Grimes and Elliott Bennett coming in, all on loan, while Darragh Lenihan has become a regular fixture in the centre of the pitch.

The competition for places remains fierce, with Danny Guthrie also on the comeback trail, and Corry Evans, Hope Akpan and Lee Williamson still in the picture.

“He’s got to play some games. He’s been out for months and months,” the Rovers boss said of Lowe.

“You can’t pick that up really quickly and throw him back into the fray of first-team football.

"It’s all right training but he’s got to play games – reserve games – to get back into the contention of it.

“I’ve seen him in training and he looks decent and tidy.

"But there’s no point in doing in training.

"He’s got to do it on the pitch to see what he can do. But he has been very good in training and now he’s got to take it to the big pitch.”

For Lowe that chance to get back out on the pitch and impress his new boss can’t come soon enough.