Race against time as Rose injury is not as bad as feared

The Stags’ 17-goal star currently has an outside chance for this weekend’s big games if he comes through some light training.

But manager David Flitcroft is also prepared for Rose to be ruled out and just happy the player’s season isn’t over after he limped off in the early minutes of Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Forest Green.

“We had a similar thing with Jacob Mellis and that ended up being just over two weeks,” said Flitcroft.

“This one is not as bad as that. There’s not as much swelling. Jacob stayed on the pitch another 20 minutes and the swelling got worse and the injury got worse.

“But we got Danny off early – almost a couple of minutes after he did the injury. So we’ve been able to get the compression on and the ice on and he shown good recovery.”

Rose immediately wore a protective boot after leaving the field and Flitcroft said: “We gave him a boot and he is now out of that boot.

“Hopefully he will start some sort of light training tomorrow.

“Where we thought it would be two to three weeks, it’s certainly not going to be that long.”

He added: “It’s too early to say if he could play this weekend. It’s a ligament injury and you’ve not got a definitive on a ligament injury.

“They do really well early doors when you get the swelling out and the compression on. It’s an injury that shows a lot of promise.

“But then there is always after-pain with a ligament injury.

“Danny said he knew straight away it was ligaments and that’s what has been diagnosed.”

Flitcroft is calling for noisy backing from supporters for Friday’s visit of leaders Accrington Stanley and admitted: “I don’t want to give myself that hope that we could have Danny as well as the supporters as it might take a turn for the worse towards the end of the week.

“We will keep assessing the situation.”