Doncaster Rovers manager Darren Moore says he is hopeful that he will soon be able to call upon the services of attacker Kazaiah Sterling, following the Tottenham loanee's spell on the sidelines with injury.

Sterling joined Doncaster on a season-long loan from the Premier League club during the summer transfer window and has so far made four appearances in all competitions for the League One side.

The attacker's progress has however been limited in recent weeks by a thigh injury, which has kept him out of action since Donny's 2-1 win over Rotherham on the 7th September.

Explaining the situation with regards to Sterling, Moore has now admitted that his club had not initially realised the severity of the 20-year-old's injury, while confirming that the attacker did spend time back at Tottenham during his recovery, with the Donny boss telling the Doncaster Free Press: “I think we underestimated it.

“When you think of a dead leg you think it’s just a dead leg. So I think we have underestimated it. Even when it happened I’ll be honest I thought dead leg, which can be anywhere from four days to two weeks tops.

“But I think with the severity of it we’re just making sure there’s nothing that we’re not detecting or picking up.  Since he got the injury he’s been away and we’ve nurtured him back, we’ve given him the treatment, he’s returned back to his parent club and he’s had a couple of scans."

Discussing a possible timescale for Sterling's return to the Keepmoat Stadium, it seems Moore feels the attacker could be available sooner rather than later, but that he will be in no mood to rush the attacker, as he added: “Hopefully he’s slowly getting back into training. It’s one of those where we’ve got to build him up. With Kazaiah his game is about energy, power and speed.

“He’s such an electrifying player that the last thing we want is for him to explode into a burst of speed and for something untoward to happen.

“It’s been a really difficult one because when you think what we could do with his ability it would be wonderful.

“But at the same time we have a duty of care for his health, making sure that when he comes back he stays back.

"But we’ve checked him out now and hopefully he’ll return soon.

“He’s been there or thereabouts. He came back into training but we’ve taken him back out of training just in case.

"Hopefully we’ll know more this week. Could he be involved at the weekend? We’ll wait and see."

Doncaster are currently tenth in League One with four wins and four draws from their opening ten league games of the season, and are next in action when they travel to the Kassam Stadium to face Oxford on Saturday.

The Verdict

This could be a welcome boost for Doncaster.

Sterling certainly seems to have made a positive impression during his time at the Keepmoat Stadium, so having him back will give them another useful option to call upon.

With Donny struggling somewhat going forward especially - with only one team in the top half scoring fewer than them - having Sterling available could be a significant boost for Donny as they go in search of more goals going forward.

This should also be something of a relief for Sterling himself, who will be keen to prove a point at Doncaster this season, having struggled somewhat for game time during his loan at Sunderland last season.

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