Mark Sykes and Neto Borges were both forced off with injury as Bristol City were beaten by Blackburn Rovers at Ashton GateMark Sykes was forced off late in Bristol City’s defeat to Blackburn Rovers(Image: EFL)

Gerhard Struber has provided an update on both Mark Sykes and Neto Borges after both Bristol City wing-backs were forced off during the Robins’ defeat to Blackburn Rovers, with the head coach confirming the former is heading to the hospital.

Borges and Sykes were withdrawn in the first and second half, respectively, as the Reds were beaten 1-0 by Rovers at Ashton Gate on Tuesday evening. In a game of few chances, Yuki Ohashi scored what proved to be the winner deep in first-half stoppage time.

The Japanese forward found himself in acres of space inside the City penalty area and calmly turned Ryoya Morishita’s low cross past Radek Vitek and into the back to ensure Struber’s side would slip to a second successive defeat.

OPINION

READ MORE: Bristol City 0-1 Blackburn Rovers reaction: Reds slip to second successive defeat at Ashton Gate

Borges made way for Sykes in the 24th minute, having gone to ground inside the City penalty area. The Ireland international then hopped straight down the tunnel late in the second half after a coming together in front of the Rovers dugout.

While the decision to withdraw Borges was more precautionary, Struber’s side had to finish with 10 men due to the severity of Sykes’ issue.

“I think I saw it outside, it looks really bad,” the Robins head coach told Bristol Live post-match. “A really long cut on the shin bone, you can see the bone, so this looks not good.

“He’s on the way to the hospital right now, so we don’t know what they have to do, but this is a really big cut and we have to do everything right now [so] that he is hopefully healthy and quickly back. But this looks not good.”

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On Borges, Struber added, “I think he was very smart to jump out. He feels something could come. We have to make the scan tomorrow afternoon, but I think it’s not the damage.

“It’s hopefully [that] he feels a tightness in the calf and hopefully, not more. We are not clear at the moment, but we have tomorrow the scan and then we are clearer.”

City came into Tuesday night’s contest looking to bounce back from their miserable defeat to Stoke City last time out. Although the Reds started well, with Anis Mehmeti seeing an early shot blocked behind for a corner, they failed to hold onto that momentum.

Blackburn asked plenty of questions of Vitek in the lead-up to Ohashi’s opener, and the away side were good value for their lead. Ultimately, defeat to Rovers leaves City sitting seventh in the Championship after 14 games, ahead of Friday night’s trip to Vicarage Road, where they will face Watford.

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Although Struber felt his side’s showing in the second half was more positive than what they had produced in the opening 45 minutes, he felt the Reds made life too difficult for themselves in the final third.

“I think we feel a big frustration today,” said the Robins boss. “We want, of course, a completely different result. We want to bounce back today; 22,000 people in the stadium today, and we cannot celebrate. This is never a good feeling.

“We expected a game like that today; many interruptions, many throw-ins, many corner kicks, many fouls. This was a game that was not easy to deal [with], the boys were ready for that.

“First half, we had a little bit of topics to have on the wide areas more control, but we could see also that we were not always in a really good synchronised moment on the way, and they had two times, I would say, good moments.

“One time, they score and second half, the boys have a really big belief and resilience to bounce back and change the result, but we were sometimes a little bit too complicated.”

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