Preston North End’s next opponents dealt double injury blow as striking options thin

It’s more than a week away, but Millwall look set to be without striking duo Duncan Watmore and Kevin Nisbet for next weekend’s trip to Preston North End.

The Lions will provide the first post-international break test for Ryan Lowe’s men, with kick-off 12:30pm at Deepdale next Saturday. Third placed PNE have 20 points after 11 games, while Millwall are 15th with five fewer points on the board. North End will look to bounce back from three consecutive defeats, against a notoriously difficult opponent.

Rowett’s men have gotten the better of PNE in recent years, with both fixtures won last season by the Lions. The London club are still searching for some consistency and will head into the North End clash with Tom Bradshaw as the club’s only available striker. Rowett does not expect Watmore, or summer signing Nisbet - who have both suffered hamstring injuries - to be ready in time.

“We’ve got Duncan out by the looks of it, we’re not sure how long,” Rowett told the South London Press. “t doesn’t look like it is a quick one-week thing and then he is back. Duncan has shown his match-winning moments in games. At the end of last season and the start of this one he had a positive period and showed what he is all about – that little bit of touch and feel around the final third. He has opened games up, got assists and a few goals in the process as well.

”(Nisbet’s) one that is probably going to be a two to three weeks, minimum. We pulled him out of our game with a tight hamstring and he went with Scotland, but with a view to potentially scanning him because we thought there might be something wrong. They scanned it and then sent him back. The process was fine. It worked well – I appreciate Scotland doing that. Some international teams, I dare say, would get the player out there and training but they were quite keen to follow up on our advice.

“I’ll have my fingers crossed over the international period because I’ve got no strikers even in training at the moment,” added Rowett, with Bradshaw away with Wales and set to face Croatia on Sunday. “I’m not one to moan about injury situations or use it as a bit of an excuse; you take it on the chin and make the best of a situation that is far from ideal. I said at the start of the season that you need a bit of luck and to keep your key players available – we’ve probably done anything but that at the moment. It’s been a sporadic start and we’ll have to look into it.”