Bristol City v Preston North End injury news as eight ruled out and three doubts

Bristol City are sweating on the fitness of Alex Scott ahead of their Championship opener with Preston.

Scott - subject of an intense amount of transfer speculation - is an injury doubt along with an unnamed teammate of his after knocks in training. The pair will be assessed after Friday’s training session ahead of the Lilywhites visit to Ashton Gate.

Rob Atkinson and Ayman Benarous are both ruled out because of the ACL injuries they suffered. Centre-back Atkinson was stretchered off against Sunderland in February, and is making a positive recovery but is someway off returning yet. Ayman Benarous meanwhile played 45-minutes in a friendly in midweek but will need to build up his game time before he is in contention.

New signing Ross McCrorie has missed several matches in pre-season and will have to wait for his competitive debut. Kal Naismith - linked on social media with a move to Wrexham - has also had to sit out of most pre-season matches but is closing in on a return but Saturday will come too soon.

“At the moment we’ve got one or two players that are going to be unavailable for this game,” admitted Pearson when assessing his squad for the opening match.

“When they are available again the squad is in a decent place. We’re pretty confident we can back up our words with performances and an end product which gives us a really good chance of being successful this year.

“Kal is back training with us now so he’ll not be for this game. Ross has got a bacterial infection, in which we’re trying to manage at the moment.

“I can’t give you a time frame on that or be any more specific. Obviously Rob Atkinson is going to be missing for a while.”

As for Preston, they’ve got four players who are set to be missing. Emil Riis, Ched Evans, Ben Whiteman and Robbie Brady have all been ruled out by Ryan Lowe. Evans and Riis have had long-term injuries with both requiring surgery, and a return in September has been tipped for them.

Whiteman required surgery in July to help with a groin problem, and so he is set to miss the start of the campaign. Brady is suffering with a calf injury and all is being described as ‘not far off’ but the start of the season is too soon for them. Calvin Ramsay meanwhile may be limited to the bench with Lowe believing he needs game time, and he might use the Carabao Cup to blood him in to competitive football.