Hamilton lose nine key men to injury

Mar 12 2009 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

HAMILTON are suffering their worst injury crisis in three seasons as they face the prospect of travelling to Aberdeen on Saturday minus nine key players.

Simon Mensing is suspended while long-term crock Mark Corcoran, striker Richard Offiong and defenders Trent McClenahan, Martin Canning and David Elebert are believed to have no chance of playing.

On the doubtful list are midfielder James McArthur and stoppers Brian Easton and Mark McLaughlin.

Australian McClenahan visited a specialist on Wednesday, and at the time of going to press manager Billy Reid was unable to confirm or deny rumours that the right-back is out for the rest of the season.

McClenahan, McArthur and Canning didn’t feature either in Sunday’s 5-1 Homecoming Scottish Cup quarter-final defeat by Rangers at Ibrox, or the 1-0 loss to Hibs in midweek.

In a nightmare cup game for the club Easton, McLaughlin and Elebert were forced off with injuries in the first half, before striker Offiong limped off with a knee injury after 55 minutes, leaving Accies down to 10 men.

Reid wasn’t in a position to say if any of the seven recent crocks are likely to feature in the Granite City but hinted that it’s not looking likely.

He said: “Our medical team is stretched to the limit right now. This is the worst injury situation we’ve had for a couple of years and it is going to be a testing time.

“It’s hard enough to compete in the SPL with a full team, and we are definitely weakened.

“This is a huge problem for us but we need to try and get through it as best we can.

“I will put the team out that I believe can win the game, but we might need to take a chance on one or two players.

“There’s no point in me getting down, because there’s nothing I can do about it.

“But we had put ourselves in the position where we were within touching distance of the top six and had we beat Hibs last Wednesday we would have been in the same position as Motherwell at the moment.

“If we had a full team out against Hibs I don’t think we would have been far away.

“If McClenahan, McArthur, McLaughlin and Canning were all playing we would have been much, much stronger.

“That is enormously frustrating but I can only work with the players I’ve got and this season they have all been tremendous.

“The squad we’ve got isn’t massive, but we’ve got young lads like Grant Evans and James Gibson, who have both come in and been excellent in the last two games.”

Reid added: “Three of our four defenders are injured. We’ll assess Brian Easton but Trent McClenahan saw a specialist yesterday (Wednesday) and Martin Canning and Richard Offiong are definitely out.

“James McArthur will go through a fitness test but we need to be careful, because if we bring him back too soon he could then be out for six to eight weeks and that’s the season over.”

Reid refused to blame injuries and bad luck for Sunday’s 5-1 demolition by Scottish Cup holders Rangers, and said: “They were better than us and deserved to win.

“It was just one of those days when nothing went for us, but I have no complaints about the result.

“When we went down to 10 men all I asked of my players was to take responsibility on the ball and they did that.

“Even with 10 men they tried to keep it and, alright, Rangers took their foot off the pedal, but there was no way we were going to win the game.”