Rovers’ Grant set for knee surgery

LUCKLESS Bristol Rovers defender Josh Grant faces a prolonged spell on the sidelines with knee surgery potentially required.

The 23-year-old saw a specialist on Thursday to discuss his options after a frustrating series of niggles. The former Chelsea prospect was thought to be closing in on a return for the Pirates, but boss Joey Barton has revealed Grant has suffered another setback and is facing an operation.

Grant has been limited to just one appearance this season – a ten-minute cameo from the bench against Oxford in August.

Barton has often highlighted Grant’s importance to Rovers at different points over the past two seasons, raving about his versatility and a football IQ that he believes will make him a good coach one day.

However, injuries have held him back, and the manager believes the situation “must be soul-destroying” for a player who cannot catch a break.

“I think Josh is going to require an operation,” Barton said. “He’s had a further setback and he hasn’t even made it to us.

“He’s still got a bit of an issue, it’s been scanned and he might need a bit of surgery in the knee.

“It must be incredibly frustrating for Josh. When you’re as good a player as he is, it must be souldestroying to keep having niggle after niggle.

“We’ve just got to help him

through that, support him and hopefully he will turn a corner someday. He’s seeing the surgeon in London. After discussing it with him, we’ll probably know a bit more about the timeframe.”

Grant joined Rovers in 2020 and played 32 times in his first league campaign with the club as they were relegated to League Two, but amid the woes of that season Barton identified him as a player he could build with. His best moments in a Rovers shirt followed, excelling as a wing-back in 2021/22 and scoring three goals in 22 appearances before his momentum was halted by a knee injury in February.

Barton added: “Josh is out of contract in the summer and you forget he is 23, he’s still young, and we hope this is the thing, the operation that sorts everything out for him and away he goes, but we’re in the lap of the gods on that and the surgeons and the physios will deal with that and take it from there.”

Barton has, at least, been boosted by the news that James Connolly should be back in full training in the next ten days.

Fellow defenders Lewis Gibson and James Gibbons have also returned to the Rovers squad in recent weeks.

Rovers have a League One home game against Cambridge United this afternoon.