Peter Ramage may not play for Barnsley again until December due to a thigh injury but the Reds are not looking to bring in any more centre-backs.

Ramage, who is on a season-long loan from Crystal Palace, sustained the injury at QPR on Saturday. With Jim McNulty on loan at Tranmere and both Jean-Yves M'Voto and Lewin Nyatanga struggling with injury, that leaves Barnsley with just four fit senior defenders in Martin Cranie, Bobby Hassell, Tom Kennedy and Scott Wiseman, although they do have youngsters such as Andrai Jones, who is back from his loan at Tranmere, Jake Scott and George Smith. Manager David Flitcroft said he is 'gutted' that Ramage is out.

The Reds boss added: "He will be injured for four to six weeks then it will probably take another two weeks to get him back to where he needs to be to be playing first team games so we could be without him for eight weeks. Rammers took two or three games to find the pace of the Championship again but in the last few weeks he and Cranes had been forming a good partnership so it is a really disappointing one for us. But I am not looking for a new centre-back. I will go with what I have got."

Flitcroft is hoping that M'Voto will have fully recovered from his ankle injury by the Middlesbrough match next Saturday. The French defender was expected to join in training today and then play in a behind-closed-doors game early next week. There is still no news on the progress of Nyatanga who has not played at all this season and is currently struggling with a knee problem.