Rovers could be without 11 first-team players for the visit of QPR, but Tony Mowbray will be ensuring he has a full complement of substitutes to choose from.

Mowbray will be definitely be without Thomas Kaminski, Elliott Bennett, Daniel Ayala, Derrick Williams, Amari’i Bell, Barry Douglas, Lewis Travis and Bradley Dack, while Adam Armstrong and Tom Trybull are both doubtful.

Bradley Johnson is back training with the squad after his period of self-isolation ended, but after just two days training with the team, his involvement is ‘highly unlikely’.

Stewart Downing too is unlikely to be included in the squad, which could leave Tyler Magloire and Joe Grayson being included on the bench for the first time this season.

The pair travelled with the squad to Swansea, and were next on the list should anyone else drop out against Middlesbrough, and are unlikely to feature for the Under-23s against Arsenal tonight.

Mowbray has previously handed a first senior call-up to Luke Brennan this season, one of 26 players used already, and nine who have made their Rovers debuts.

“We have to see how many bodies we have. We’ll see where the numbers are and pick the 18 from there,” Mowbray said.

“As I’ve said before, I will never put a reduced bench out.

“We will put seven substitutes out, and if Stewart Downing is one of them then fine.

“But as I sit here, he hasn’t done anything in the last three months and you can’t come and train for two days and think you can go and go and affect a football match.

“Maybe he thinks by sitting on the bench he might get the last five minutes, I don’t know.”

Downing re-joined the club on Monday, training with the squad then for the first time since his contract ended in July.

He was clocked up two more days’ worth of training since, and had declared himself available should he be required.

Mowbray sees it slightly differently however, adding: “It’s probably his emotional side coming into it. I watch him in training and he still has that wand of a left foot, he’s hitting 60-yard diagonals right onto someone’s toe.

“His mind can, whether his body can when I’m shouting at him and telling him to run up and down is another question of course.

“My plan was for him to come in, to give him the international break, get fit and then consider him on the back of that.”