Raith Rovers: Boss Ian Murray faces major headache as he has only 12 fit outfield players left to face Ayr United

The pain of an injury crisis which includes crocked Rovers stars Ross Matthews, Jamie Gullan, Dylan Easton, Brad Spencer, Ryan Nolan and Esmael Goncalves has been further exacerbated by the unavailability of defender Tom Lang and striker Lewis Vaughan, who will also miss this Saturday’s Championship trip to fifth-placed Ayr through suspension.

“This is one of the hardest weeks I’ve ever had preparing for a football match,” Murray told the Fife Free Press ahead of Raith’s penultimate league game of 2022-2023. "It doesn’t really get much tougher. Especially when you’re going to a difficult venue like Somerset Park to play a team going for the play-offs.

"We’ll have 10 outfield players fit, two outfield subs and one goalie.

"That won’t go up the way either, the only way it can go is down because all the boys who are injured will definitely be missing out.

"At least we’re not sweating on anybody’s fitness because we know they’re out.

"It’s been very, very difficult to train because we know if we get another injury or two then we literally can’t field a team.

"So we have to try and keep our training very low key on the contact side of it just so we have a team.

"It’s a wee bit strange. Obviously last week’s sending offs (to Lang and Vaughan) haven’t helped us and they were both very harsh I felt.

"And the injuries have just mounted up, our lack of squad depth has just caught up with us at the end of the season.

"Ayr have done really well this season. Since Christmas it’s maybe been a wee bit of a mixed bag at times but that’s what happens. If they beat us they might go into the last game in fourth position.”

After such a challenging season, Murray – whose team are certain to finish seventh – is keen to use this summer’s transfer window to strengthen his squad and minimise the risk of this term’s significant upheaval caused by injuries having a similarly devastating effect next campaign.

"There’s no question that we’ll be looking to beef up the squad this summer to give ourselves a better fighting chance,” he added.

"We’ve asked the boys in the squad this season to go and play a lot of games.

"Some people forget that this will be our 48th game on Saturday.

"Some of these boys have played 44, 45, some even 46. We’ve asked them to do a lot, we’ve asked them to keep going every single week but it catches you eventually.

"If you look around our league, particularly at Inverness and Partick Thistle, you will notice that they both had a huge dip in form after big injury problems.

"And it’s no real coincidence that the teams with the biggest squads and biggest squad depth (Dundee, Queen’s Park, Inverness and Partick) are probably currently occupying the top four positions.”