'There's no crisis': Raith Rovers' Dougie Imrie gives major update on several injured stars
Despite only being able to field three substitutes for last Friday night’s 2-0 home William Hill Championship loss to Livingston due to eight player absentees, Raith Rovers gaffer Dougie Imrie claims talk of an injury crisis heading into this week’s league match at bottom club Greenock Morton is now well wide of the mark.
With long-term absentee Charlie Telfer (hamstring) being joined by Raith mates Calum Adamson (calf), Anton Dowds (ankle), Scott Tiffoney (arm), Ross Millen (calf), Dylan Easton (knock in training) and Lewis Vaughan (knee), plus goalkeeper Luke Armstrong (away on international duty with Wales under-21s) in missing the Stark’s Park defeat to David Martindale’s Lions, Rovers fans had been fearful there could be similar issues for this weekend’s trip to Cappielow Park.
But, when asked by the Fife Free Press after training on Tuesday if he’d ever known such an injury crisis during his time in football management, gaffer Imrie, 43, replied: “It's part and parcel of it. There’s no point worrying about it. You can only deal with the cards you are dealt.
"You never hear me moaning. We build a squad to be competitive.
"Unfortunately, we've picked up a lot of these contact injuries on the pitch and it's everybody's effort here to get players back as quickly as we can.
"We had 15 training today. Two others weren't here because of other things going on. So hopefully tomorrow we might have 17 training, so no crisis.
"The only long term injury absentee is Charlie Telfer. He’ll maybe be out until maybe the middle of November, start of December, with his hamstring.
"Obviously we didn’t get the chance to work with Anton yesterday – he went to see a specialist - so he’ll be four, five six weeks. That’s good news because he could have been worse.
"Calum Adamson will be four, five weeks, hopefully quicker, but that’s the time frame we’ve been given. He got a scan that showed a grade two tear but he got a bang in training.
"And everybody else, I expect to be available for Saturday.
"Lewis Vaughan trained today, Ross Millen trained today and the others (apart from keeper Armstrong who remains away with Wales under-21s) are back.”