Rotherham United: Millers monitor injured Becchio

The Argentine hitman, who last month signed a deal with the Championship club until the of the season, hurt his calf in training after making two substitute appearances.

“He has got a slight calf strain he picked up during the week,” Millers manager Neil Redfearn confirmed. “He has done a lot in a short space of time after being out for a while. I think it is a superficial one.”

Becchio, aged 32, is one of three players Rotherham have signed as free agents after they have had long spells out of the game and all of them are in the treatment room.

Redfearn hinted that the amount of work Becchio, fellow forward Leon Best, 29, and defender Stephen Kelly, 32, have had to do in a bid to reach full fitness is behind their absence.

“We are shopping at a different market to everybody else,” he said. “The players we are bringing in are good players, experienced players, and they are doing everything they can.

“But what happens when you’re picking up players who are out of contract is you have to get them up to speed quickly and it becomes difficult.

“We’re just not having any luck with injuries. It’s just one of those things.”

Redfearn would like to adopt a 4-4-2 system at times but is being held back from playing two up front by the unavailability of Best, who is recovering from groin surgery, and the wait for Becchio to hone his sharpness.

Rotherham, with Danny Ward as a striker and new boy Andrew Shinnie just behind him, created the best chances but were beaten 2-1 at the Macron Stadium by a second-minute goal and one in time added on to drop back into the relegation places.

“The first goal, conceding after a minute, sets you back,” Redfearn said. “When we’re set up for corners and the ball goes back to the lad, we’ve got to get out there. We can’t just let the lad shoot. But the players can’t give any more than what they are giving.

“At the end of the day we are finishing on the wrong side of a result when we should be coming away with a win and all three points. The frustration is not getting over the line.”

Centre-half Richard Wood was brought in for his first match of the season as Redfearn opted for experience in his backline, also recalling right-back Frazer Richardson.

“It was very disappointing because we had done well for the majority of the game,” he said. “A silly goal and then one at the death killed us off. It’s hard to take but on the other side of it there are a lot of games to go and we are not out of it yet.

“We had them on the ropes for the majority of the game and the crowd was going against them. We played some good stuff and created some good chances which we maybe should have taken.

“At 1-1 you never know which way it is going to go and they came up with a last-minute goal.”

Wood had the opportunity to cover himself in glory with an overhead kick in the 83rd minute, but his effort went tamely to Bolton keeper Ben Amos.

“It’s not my thing that,” he said. “I’ve got no ‘tekkers’ with that. I don’t know why I tried it. If it had gone in, I don’t know what I would have done.”

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