Sheffield United consider surgery for Rhian Brewster as Blades take 'needs must' approach to injuries

The explosive striker striker and club record signing suffered a second major hamstring injury of 2022 against West Bromwich Albion.

He will not feature at home to Rotherham United on Tuesday, although James McAtee will, and the Blades hope fellow Manchester City loanee Tommy Doyle might too.

They are still assessing Brewster.

"It (surgery) is not 100 per cent yet, they're still debating it," stressed McCall. "It might be a route they go down. I'm just surmising.

"Unfortunately it's part and parcel of the game, especially hamstrings at the moment. A couple of Rotherham lads have gone down.

"We keep looking back and saying is there something we’re doing wrong? The number of games, the intensity, the pace of football is just putting so much on them."

The Blades' injury list means players are being asked to play when they probably should not.

"We've got at least four who if we had a fully-fit squad wouldn't be in the 18," admitted McCall, who rates Doyle’s chances at “50-50”.

"Saturday was probably the toughest game Enda Stevens could have come into against Burnley with two out-and-out wide men and especially the boy (Manuel) Benson, who's a really good player.

"Enda's not (started) since Watford, the opening game of the season. We threw him in because we really had to. We needed Ozzy (Ben Osborn)'s energy in the middle.

"It was the same with Robbo (Jack Robinson) at Bristol when he was only supposed to get 60 minutes but because of the injury to Bash (Chris Basham), he had to play the full 90.

"We managed to get Enda off after 70 minutes but we didn't have Tommy Doyle or Macca (McAtee) to go into midfield if we moved Ozzy, and Bash could only play for a certain amount of time.

"Flecky (John Fleck) came back a lot quicker than he should have done, really, but it was needs must for him too. He's just managing now to get up to speed."

Rotherham have problems too, but the Blades know there will be no let-up in their intensity.

"They've got a lot of energy," warned McCall. "They get forward well, put the ball in your box and you have to be strong at set plays.

"They're slightly different to Burnley but they've got good footballers and played really well in the middle of the park against Burnley. I admire a lot of their players. They've got good types and characters."

The teams were due to meet in September but the game was postponed because of the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The Millers have since changed manager from Paul Warne to Matt Taylor.

"They'll go to the final whistle," said McCall. "They've got a real good spirit about them.

"We played them in a pre-season game under Paul. Things have been slightly tweaked but they've got the same players. They've certainly got energy and togetherness.

"When quarter to eight comes it's a brand new three points. We can't come into this game half-hearted.

"We've got to get right at them from the first whistle and impose ourselves, like we've managed to with a lot of teams at Bramall Lane."