Elgin City manager Allan Hale expects centre back Jack Murray to be out for ‘a number of weeks’ as Borough Briggs injury list grows ahead of William Hill League 2 top-of-the-table derby against Peterhead
Elgin City have lost yet another centre back to a long term injury.
Jack Murray is set to be missing for “a number of weeks” according to manager Allan Hale after hobbling off in Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Edinburgh City.
It leaves the Black and Whites without a fit central defender for Saturday’s top-of-the-table League 2 derby against Peterhead.
Murray collided with the Edinburgh goalkeeper inside the opening 15 minutes of last weekend’s match and wasn’t able to continue.
The fullness of the injury has yet to be established, but Hale admitted: “It’s not looking great, to be honest.
“We've had a brief assessment during the game from the matchday physio and it looks like he’s going to be out for a number of weeks.
“We don’t know the full extent, we need the swelling to come down but it looks like there is some damage there that will keep him out for, I would say four to six weeks but until that’s fully assessed we won’t fully know.
“That was the early indication that the physio gave us on Saturday.”
Elgin were also missing their previously ever-present left back Lyall Booth on Saturday due to illness.
The former Aberdeen defender had been running on empty after playing in all of City’s 24 league and cup matches prior to Saturday, and was struck down by a bug late last week.
Hale was already missing captain Matthew Cooper, centre backs Ross Draper and Jake Dolzanski, goalkeepers Tom McHale and Olly Kelly and midfield duo Rory MacEwan and Ryan MacLeman, all down to various injuries.
In addition, stopper Kyle Girvan and midfielder Mark Gallagher were forced into action at Edinburgh from the start when neither were fit to play.
“It’s every centre back that’s injured. Kyle has been playing with an injury (ankle tendonitis) and Mark has bruising right on the bone which takes a bit of time to come out. He probably wasn’t fit enough to start the game but just the circumstances of our injuries forced our hand.
“With Lyall pulling out on the morning of the game, we really had no choice but to put Mark back in.”
Hale was forced to play Russell Dingwall as a makeshift right back at Edinburgh with Owen Cairns taking on the uncustomary left back slot in place of Booth.
When Murray was injured early on, Brian Cameron had to drop back from his usual midfield position to play as a stand-in centre back.
“The centre of defence is an area of the team that we’ve given ourselves good depth and it’s been really unfortunate that they’ve all got injured at the same time.
“After Saturday that was 12 players out and from the East Fife game at the start of the season there was nine players from that team who were out of action.”
In a match ruined as a spectacle by the gale-force winds, Elgin had the better chances but struck the woodwork twice and lost out to James Stokes’ 52nd minute finish for the home side.
“It was very frustrating. Both teams coped far better with conditions when they played into the wind,” Hale added.
“We had the wind first half and just found it really difficult to get our foot on the ball and have any sustained pressure on the game. It was quite a laboured first half performance where we didn’t threatened the goal enough.
“In saying that the goalkeeper has pulled off a wonder save from Russell Dingwall, and Ryan Sargent has had a shot that’s been cleared off the line at the tail end of the half.
“In the second half I’ve got to give so much credit to the players, especially after Jack Murray getting that early injury. You’ve got to play midfielders at full back and centre midfielders at centre back so it was a really makeshift back four with the injuries that we’ve got.
“So to put in the level of performance and the response to losing the early goal was really positive. The last 20-25 minutes of the game, we’ve put a really good team under so much pressure and we’ve had enough chance to get something from the game.”
In the very last action of the game before the final whistle, Elgin’s Lewis Hyde curled a shot off the post and Dylan Gavin fired the loose ball wide with the goal at his mercy.
The Elgin players sank to their knees when the referee blew his whistle immediately after.
“Certainly the miss we had at the end was one of real frustration at the time. Considering how makeshift that our team, had we come away from there it would have been a great result.
“Maybe the lesson is that when you’re on top you’ve got to take your chances and we’ve not done that. When Edinburgh were on top, they took their chance and ultimately won the game so full credit to them. For us it was frustrating because I thought the players merited a point out of the game.
“The Stirling game apart, the performances despite the results have been really pleasing. They were excellent at East Fife and again in the second half on Saturday at Edinburgh.
“In League 2, results are defined by small margins on a weekly basis and in the last couple of weeks those small margins went against us.
“To be fair, had you said to me from the start of October to the end of December that you’re going to go through a lot of injuries and you would still be within touching distance of the top of the league and in the play-off positions, we would have settled for that.
“I think we need to put things into perspective. Maybe the results have been disappointing but the players have are certainly doing what they can in very testing circumstances and deserve a lot of credit as far as I’m concerned.”
Hale hopes to have Booth back from his bout of illness to face Peterhead at Borough Briggs on Saturday. Girvan is expected to be asked to play through the pain barrier again with no other centre backs available, and Gallagher could be closer to shaking off his impact injury in time to play in the centre of the park.
Lyall Booth
“It has been challenging circumstances for sure in the last few weeks but you can see the players have been giving everything and performances have been really good.
“No-one would have been surprised if we had taken something from the games at East Fife and Edinburgh after what we put in, but we haven’t and that’s the nature of football sometimes - the small margins.
“As long as the performances are still there then we are pretty sure that if we are getting that level of performance, results won’t be far away and that’s where we will take our encouragement.
“The players on the pitch are putting in really committed performances and once we can get through this sticky patch that we are in at the moment without the damage being extensive, once everyone is back then we know we've got a team that can put results together as we have shown this season.”
The January transfer window opens in a week’s time and Hale is keen to do business, though it is likely to be the loan market he will have to explore.
Elgin currently have keeper Aidan Glavin and winger Kian Leslie on loan from Kilmarnock, with the pair scheduled to return to their parent club after the Peterhead match.
Hale said: “We have had discussions with the board and we are quite proactive with these things.
“The board has been great and there’s a capability to bring in a couple. It’s going to be loans or free transfers as opposed to buying anyone but there’s scope to do some business and we are certainly looking to do that and we will see what happens.
“We just need to be in the position where we are building a bit of depth back into the squad. We are really stretched at the moment and we need players who can come in and we have identified areas even without the injuries that we need to strengthen.
“With it being January it is difficult to do huge bits of business because it’s a difficult market at the best of times but for us, we are being proactive and the scouting team are as well. We are all working together and hopefully we can do a couple of things at least.”
Elgin have twice found themselves knocked off top spot in recent weeks, and Saturday’s opponents Peterhead are the new leaders, two points above the Black and Whites.
“Saturday won’t be any different to any other game,” said Hale. “We will approach it in the same way as we do with any other game and we will try and prepare the players as best we can.
“We will have a game plan and regardless of the team that we put out, hopefully we can put in a good performance against a good team who are doing well.
“They took our place at the weekend at the top of the league and it's really tight up there so we want to make sure that come 5 o’clock that the gap is still as tight as it was before the game.
“We know it’s always a tough game against Peterhead and whoever is the most consistent within the 90 minutes will win the game and hopefully we can fall on the right side of that this week.”
