Bradley Johnson will miss Rovers’ trip to Newcastle United with an ankle problem as just 17 players trained on Monday ahead of the Carabao Cup tie.

Johnson scored his first of the season in the opening day fixture at Bournemouth but won’t travel to the north east with the squad because of an ankle problem.

Rovers Under-23s will play a behind closed doors fixture at Sunderland today, with Jacob Davenport likely to be among those featuring for Billy Barr’s side, restricting the numbers available to Mowbray.

The manager admits the weekend game with Wycombe has become more important after the opening day defeat at Bournemouth which is likely to impact his selection at Newcastle United.

That will include Adam Armstrong, who has two goals in two games this season, with the manager set to speak to the attacker this morning about his possible involvement given the 23-year-old will be keen to play against his former club.

Sam Gallagher will sit out for a third consecutive match with a thigh problem, but Mowbray expects the rest of the squad who travelled to the south coast to head to the north east.

“Bradley Johnson is the main one, I’m hoping he will be okay for the weekend so we won’t take a chance on him, apart from that, the same sort of squad will travel,” Mowbray said.

“We are training with 17 today because there’s an Under-23s side going to play Sunderland.

“It feels as if we’ve been going quite a while already. Because it’s such a short pre-season you do feel as though you’re picking up a lot of knocks and niggles and as you try and get their fitness levels to where you want them, you push them pretty hard and it does feel like the middle of pre-season still where’s the aches and the pains and a few knocks.

“Really you should keep pushing them hard, because it feels like pre-season, you’re four weeks in and normally a pre-season is six weeks.

“What I’m trying to say is there’s a few knocks and pains, but we’ll pick the team with half an eye on Saturday because Wycombe on Saturday, after an opening day defeat, that becomes more important for us and we have to try and get three points.”