St Mirren manager Jim Goodwin counted the cost of another injury after his side’s 1-1 draw with Motherwell in the William Hill Scottish Cup.
Just 24 hours after confirming converted right-back Ryan Flynn had suffered cruciate ligament damage, Lee Hodson went off with a hamstring injury after starting the first game of his second spell at St Mirren in the same position.
With no defenders on the bench, midfielder Cammy MacPherson dropped into the back four and there are few options for Goodwin following Kirk Broadfoot’s unexpected return to Kilmarnock on transfer deadline day.
Kyle Magennis recently suffered cruciate damage and fellow midfielder Stephen McGinn is three weeks away from a return, but centre-back Gary McKenzie is due to return to training imminently following a lengthy lay-off with a hamstring problem.
“It looks like Lee has done his hamstring,” Goodwin said. “We won’t know the extent of it until it settles down and we send him for a scan. It never rains but it pours.
“We had a terrible time of it before the winter break and were looking forward to having everyone back fit.
“Having 22 bodies on the training pitch was brilliant and now every single game there seems to be something different.
“Hopefully it’s not major but the minimum for a hamstring injury is a couple of weeks at least.”
Goodwin is unlikely to bring in reinforcements.
“We’ve got a list of guys who are free agents but they’ve not played a great deal of football in the last 12 to 18 months,” he said.
“It’s always a gamble to ask someone to come in and play at that level of intensity when the body is not used to doing it, you run the risk of muscle injury.
“We’ll just need to assess everything and hopefully we can put together a back line for Livingston on Wednesday.
“We had to dig in a couple of times defensively before Christmas with guys playing out of position and we didn’t lose too many. Sometimes in adversity things can work out in your favour. We’ll just have to make best with what we’ve got.”
Alex Jakubiak’s second-half equaliser earned Saints a replay at Fir Park a week on Tuesday – three days after they visit Motherwell in the league.
Motherwell boss Stephen Robinson, who saw Mark O’Hara open the scoring for his team, said: “We’ll be sick of the sight of each other but hopefully it will be us going into the next round of the cup and a win and they will be saying exactly the same thing.
“It was two teams that gave absolutely everything. I’m sure Jim is the same, delighted with their commitment in the conditions. It was difficult to pass the ball and create and have any kind of quality.
“But I am happy we are going back to Fir Park on our pitch and hopefully take the game to them and get to the next round of the cup.”
