"Nightmare" scenario for Elgin City manager Gavin Price as Covid outbreak forced squad into isolation and sets Borough Briggs club's pre-season preparations back two weeks
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ELGIN City boss Gavin Price is remaining positive after a Covid-related disruption to his pre-season preparations.
Ten City players were forced to self-isolate, and first-team training was cancelled after at least two positive coronavirus cases confirmed in the squad.
Chairman Graham Tatters said routine lateral flow tests taken up to three times a week by the players had resulted in some positive results, with others taking PCR tests as a follow-up.
Boss Price was forced to pull the plug on a training camp weekend in his home town of Aberfeldy last week, and two friendly matches were cancelled - a situation he described as a "nightmare".
He was finally able to resume training last night and Saturday’s warm-up match at home to Ross County will go ahead, although three players are expected to be missing as self-isolation continues.
“It’s been a bit of a nightmare to be honest,” said Price.
“It’s changed the way we’ve had to do our pre-season, and we are very much going to have to treat the League Cup as an extension of that.
“We are a couple of weeks behind because of what has happened.”
Summer signing Archie Macphee and defender Matthew Cooper are expected to sit out tomorrow’s Ross County game along with a trialist who Price was keen to see in action.
Price has always treated the League Cup group stages as part of his team’s preparation for the league campaign.
City will host Arbroath a week tomorrow in their first match, short of where the manager wanted pre-season fitness levels to be.
“We have lost two friendlies and the Aberfeldy weekend where we wanted to bed down a few things in training, and work on our tactical shape. So it’s not been great, but we will just have to work that bit harder when we’ve got everybody available.
“I don’t want to accentuate the situation by working people too hard and injuring people. We’ve got to be patient as it’s not going to happen overnight, we’ve just got to take it step by step with the training and the players.”
Elgin’s League Two opener against Stranraer is the key date for Price, and he said he remains optimistic that he will have his squad ready for that July 31 match.
He will play new centre back Creag Little against County this weekend, and hopes to sign at least two more players before the start of the League 2 season.
With defenders Stephen Bronsky and David Wilson and striker Smart Oladolor leaving the club, Price knows there are areas he needs to strengthen.
"We have lost Stephen, David and Smart and I feel that leaves us a couple of players short, potentially three," he said.
"We’ve brought in (goalkeeper) Daniel Hoban so we have improved in that area of the park.
"We always knew there was a risk of losing Stephen with his new job so we quickly did that with Creag knowing there was that danger.
"The loss of David is something we need to cover on that side of the park. And we will probably need another striker, and if there’s any other positions we see during the season we will probably look at the loan market to cover anything.
"We signed Archie (Macphee) on a permanent deal as well.
"So we have good options all over the park and this group of players know each other and how we play so I'm certainly not pessimistic about where we are, that’s for sure."
