Simon Grayson has warned his players they will face a much improved Doncaster Rovers at the Keepmoat tonight, but at least he should have no new injury problems going into the game.

Since we beat them in the League Cup in August, Doncaster have replaced the unfortunate Sean O'Driscoll with a new manager in Dean Saunders, and the new boss has attracted a couple of quality new players to the Keepmoat, as well as producing a marked improvement in results. O'Driscoll did a good job for most of his time at Doncaster, guiding them into the Championship and keeping them clear of relegation for the first three seasons, but this time round he suffered terrible luck with injuries.

At the end of September the board decided to replace him with Dean Saunders, who had done a good job in guiding Wrexham into the top 5 of the Conference, and the Welshman has already lifted Donny off the bottom of the Championship table. After gaining only one point from their first seven league games, a remarkable turnaround has seen them earn two wins and a draw from the last three.

Saunders has brought in Jon Parkin on loan from Cardiff and former Spurs defender Pascal Chimbonda, and his latest signing is former England goalkeeper Chris Kirkland. Kirkland is likely to make his debut tonight, and is keen to re-start his career after a series of injuries after coming to South Yorkshire on loan from Wigan.

So it’s no surprise that Simon Grayson sounded a little wary as he spoke to the official site. “Not only are Doncaster are different team to the one we played in the Carling Cup, they are also playing differently too. I saw them play against Hull and they are more direct than they were and are mixing things up more. Parkin gives them an outlet to be more direct and they are playing to their personnel. We're under no illusion that it will be tough."

At least the manager has had some good news on the injury front, with long term casualty Davide Somma likely to be the only player unavailable. Earlier in the week Robert Snodgrass was a major doubt, having dropped out of the Scotland squad with the ankle injury he sustained against Portsmouth, but he was back in training yesterday and should be fit to play tonight.

In the last couple of weeks Doncaster have benefitted from the return of some of the players who missed the start of the season through injury, with Sharp Coppinger and Hayter all back in action, but they still have a lengthy list of players unavailable. Chris Brown, Adam Lockwood, Martin Woods, James Chambers, Mustapha Dumbuya and Tommy Spurr are all out and with various injuries. Even so, our former captain Richard Naylor is unlikely to get a game, because Herita Ilunga has come in on loan from West Ham, which should see George Friend revert to centre-back.

Simon Grayson is undoubtedly right that this will be a tough game for Leeds, and I think a draw is the most likely outcome.

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