BLACKBURN Rovers face an anxious wait on the full extent of Craig Bellamy's thigh injury.

The striker will definitely miss tomorrow's opening Premiership home game with Fulham but manager Mark Hughes is hoping the injury, sustained while training Wales this week, might not be as serious as first thought.

"Craig had an initial scan when he came back but we need to leave it 48 hours so he can have a more comprehensive one," said Hughes.

"That will show the full extent of the injury then we'll have more of an idea how long he is likely to be out for.

"He went with an ankle problem that kept him out of the pre-season games up to the West Ham game and he had an injection to get through that.

"But he apparently took a shot at goal during training for the international squad and felt something.

"There are always best and worst case scenarios and we don't know at the moment but he's obviously missing at the weekend.

Former Wales boss Hughes also voiced his frustration that he wasn't told about his player's injury when it happened.

"We didn't have a problem with releasing him up to the game and up to the injury, but I was disappointed we weren't informed after the injury," said Hughes.

"He was back on Thursday but there were procedures that were in place with Wales when I was there, and now there's not."

Bellamy's absence is just one headache for Hughes, who might be tempted to revert to the successful 4-5-1 formation that rescued Rovers last season, such is the dearth of attacking options available.

Paul Dickov serves the first of a three-game ban for last week's red card at West Ham wile Matt Derbyshire is also suspended because of his pre-season sending off against Munich 1860.

Matt Jansen is still struggling for fitness, but Shefki Kuqi and Paul Gallagher both came back from international duty unscathed.

Another option Hughes has is to put fit-again Ryan Nelsen in at centre half and move Aaron Mokoena into a holding midfield role.