adminStephan Negru discusses dealing with injury setbacks and his excitement to make home debut
Stephan Negru has only made three appearances this season due to a recurring injury but started in last week’s 2-1 win against Bromley
Stephan Negru has found minutes hard to come by this season after joining the club on loan from Oxford United in the summer with an injury. The 23-year-old impressed at Salford City in League Two last season, making 32 appearances for the Ammies as they narrowly missed out on a play-off spot.
Negru arrived at the Gas on deadline day, but it wasn’t until 7th October in the EFL Trophy that he made his debut away at Cheltenham Town. Since then, the young centre-back has appeared as a substitute in the 4-0 defeat to Crawley Town and played 90 minutes in last weekend’s 2-1 win against Bromley.
None of Negru’s three appearances for the Gas have come at the Memorial Stadium and the Irish-born defender expressed his excitement about playing in front of the home supporters. He said: “Yeah, I can’t wait. I’ve been on the bench now, I think twice at the Mem and the atmosphere and everything is electric, so I can’t wait to play in front of the fans and try to show them a little bit what I can do.”
Injury issues meant that Negru missed the last two months of the 2024/25 season for Salford. These problems persisted into the 2025/26 campaign, and despite this, Rovers struck a loan deal for the 23-year-old on deadline day.
It has been a long road to recovery for Negru, and he described his frustration at the length of time he’s spent on the sidelines. He said: “I love playing football. It’s been a tough, long road for me with this injury. It’s been a complicated one, but I’m happy I’ve got through it now, and I can enjoy playing football and doing what I love.
When asked about the specifics of the injury, Negru said: “It’s a complicated one. I had a double hernia and then the surgery kind of complicated a few things and I was out for seven to eight months. But we’re past it now, so now we’re looking forward to the future and to try to play football and try to do my best to help this club.”
One thing is for certain: Bristol Rovers are a squad with plenty of options at centre-back. Despite the injury to Alfie Kilgour, the Gas have the likes of Tom Lockyer, Kacper Lopata, Clinton Mola and Taylor Moore ready to start in the middle of the backline.
Discussing the strength in depth at centre-back within the Rovers squad, Negru said: “We’ve got a lot of good players in the squad and like you said, especially at centre half as well, which is another bonus because I think competitiveness is healthy within the group, it pushes everyone day in, day out in training and gives competition to fight for places.
“And obviously, I back myself to be ahead of my competitors, but like I said, it helps us to get better day in, day out, and also we pick on stuff from each other, we learn from each other. There’s experience in the house here. I like learning from them and improving myself.”
Now that Negru’s injury issues are hopefully behind him, he is now keen to focus on moving up the League Two table and achieving the team’s goal of promotion, while also continuing his own personal development.
He said: “For me personally, I’ve started to play games now because I’ve been injured for a while and once I get comfortable playing games and my body gets used to it again, I want to help this team get promoted.
“For me its keeping clean sheets, doing my job and obviously, little goals like getting a few goals on the other side of the pitch, but I want to keep balls out of my own net and help this team get promoted. That’s my main goal.”
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