Gary Rowett isn’t confident any of Birmingham City’s injured stars will return in time for Monday’s meeting with Preston North End. Blues face a crunch clash with Preston after slipping deeper into the relegation mire with a 2-1 defeat to Queens Park Rangers on Friday. Jimmy Dunne scored a stunner in stoppage time to complete QPR’s turnaround and leave Blues above the relegation zone on goal difference only. Rowett was boosted by the return of Krystian Bielik to his midfield after a six-game absence. Siriki Dembele and Keshi Anderson returned to the bench at Loftus Road. Marc Roberts, Alex Pritchard, Oliver Burke and Lukas Jutkiewicz all missed the QPR match through injury. Jutkiewicz travelled to Loftus Road to support his teammates. READ: Gary Rowett confirms change to Birmingham City coaching staff after QPR absence READ: Birmingham City player ratings after QPR inflict late defeat When asked about the availability of Roberts and Pritchard, Rowett said: “We have had a few that have just come back quite late this week with limited training time, the likes of those and Burkey, I don’t know how quick they are going to come back. Sometimes, when someone is back for an hour’s training, it’s difficult to start them. After Monday’s game we will be in a better position in terms of getting one or two of those back. “Lukas Jutkiewicz is going to be a while. He’s the sort of player you want to throw on for 15 or 20 minutes but he won’t be available.” Rowett’s heart must have been in his mouth when Bielik went down in stoppage time. Thankfully, Bielik hasn’t suffered another injury. Rowett added: “It was just cramp I think. You’ve obviously had the likes of Paik who had a long journey back, and at that point we were trying to take him off, but Krystian had cramp. We’ll have to manage that for Monday. For someone like JJ, it was difficult to play him after the extra time that he had. We had to manage him today.”