FATIGUE levels, accrued bookings and safeguarding senior players for upcoming league games will be among Tony Mowbray’s thinking ahead of tomorrow’s FA Cup first round tie with Barnet at Ewood Park.

With injuries and suspensions starting to bite Mowbray’s options will be restricted as he prepares to lead Rovers out in the competition for the first time.

Fringe players Jayson Leutwiler, Sam Hart, Ben Gladwin and Rekeem Harper are among those looking for inclusion against the League Two side with Richie Smallwood and Dominic Samuel suspended and Darragh Lenihan, Craig Conway and Harry Chapman missing through injury.

Midfielders Corry Evans and Elliott Bennett are one booking away from a ban while the possible inclusion of some of the club’s Under-23s players is hampered by Damien Johnson’s side, also blighted by absentees, facing a Premier League Cup clash against Watford at Leyland tonight (7pm).

The cup tie also ends a week which has included league games against Wigan and Fleetwood and Mowbray said his players covered the most ground of any match so far in those two drawn fixtures.

He said: “I think we need to look at various things – at accrued bookings, fatigue levels of certain players and we look at their numbers for every game.

“Their numbers for the last two games are the highest in terms of intensity levels so they have put in a real shift in the last two games.

“We have to be mindful of that and there are not a few more hamstring injuries around the corner because the numbers from their GPS systems are high and we have to be careful not to overload players that we see as really important.

“I think each game dictates (the level of intensity).

“Going away to Wigan we worked really hard during the week on a gameplan of trying to be on the front foot and taking them out of their passing rhythm and that required a high intensity.

“The intensity levels away from home hadn’t been particularly high because of how we set up.

“Tuesday night was a bit of a surprise that it was slightly higher than Wigan in terms of the intensity levels.

“It shows the players are striving to win each football match and having watched it back there were plenty of positives to take, the nature of the goals we conceded was very unlike us I would have to say.

“They’re doing okay – I said to them afterwards that I can’t criticise the effort and drive that they put in to it.

“On the sidelines I could see how hard they had worked to try and get a positive result and yet there was the frustration of only taking a point.”