Matt Taylor adamant Rotherham United may be broken in bodies, but not in spirit

Manager Matt Taylor confirmed that Georgie Kelly (hamstring), Conor Washington, pictured, (knee) and Grant Hall (muscular injury) will all miss tonight’s trip to Sheffield United and the visit to Luton Town on Saturday.

All three injuries were picked up within 17 playing minutes of last Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Norwich, a result that left Rotherham just two points above the relegation zone in a Championship table as cluttered as its schedule.

This was always going to be a tough period for Rotherham with five away games in six, especially with a new manager who has had little time to work with his players on the training pitch, but if they cannot snap this winless run before the break they might find themselves in the bottom three.

Yet while they are broken in body, Taylor insists they are as sharp as ever in the mind.

"Morale is incredible. I always speak honestly with them, but they are so bright,” said Taylor, whose side have been competitive in all their recent games despite not yielding the returns.

"Nobody likes losing games of football and the manner of the defeats has been so difficult, but the morale is sky high.

"The only weakness is the bodies. If there as a league table on character, will and desire we’d be in the top 10, if not the top six, if not the top two.

"But we have to find a way of staying competitive these last two games and then see where we are.”

A fixture at Bramall Lane where they have not won since 1980 and lost their last five, against a team that has rediscovered their scoring prowess if the second-half rout of Burnley is anything to go by, is as daunting as it gets in the second tier.

But this is the Championship, after all. So how does a team shorn of three key players match up to Paul Heckingbottom’s high-flyers?

"The same way we competed at the weekend,” said Taylor. “You don’t expect those injuries to go down but the lads found a way of competing, they found an extra drive and energy to compete against a top team like Norwich.

"Things are stacked against us at the moment but we’re not feeling sorry for ourselves.

"I’ve never been involved in a couple of losses where we’ve had such a positive feel about the playing group, and that’s down to our performances.

“Our performances are close to where we need to be, it’s just as always in football you need to turn those performances into results.

"We’ll give ourselves a fighting chance at Sheffield United as long as we’re competitive, as long as we’re hard to beat.

"We have to have our wits about us, we have to defend well, we have to see out individual moments of quality. But I’m not looking for a defensive performance, we have to go and attack the opposition, and there are positive signs of that in our recent away games."