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Stephen O'donnell


Lionel J. Botch
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Chris Jack has reported on twitter he is out for the rest of the season. Leaves us kinda short at the back.

 

Hip operation.

 

I think he's been carrying the injury for a while and this is as late as he could leave it to get as much 13/14 game time, and be fully fit for next season starting.

 

He's not been the same player since his injury last season, certainly this season his confidence had looked shot to pieces at times.

 

Hopefully this break will allow him to get his head together, get fully fit and come back next season as the player we know who charged down the line and cut balls back onto the penalty spot for our attackers to meet.

 

I can't remember the last time he did that!

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Reported in Times too. Will we be recalling youngsters from loan? Can we? What's the deal?

 

Hunted about a bit and I see in the Hearts preview Archie said they thought Balatoni could be back for the first or second game of the split. Hopefully that's true as we're otherwise really struggling.

 

Fraser has played in defence before, full back I think (as has Balatoni) so maybe we do have some cover though it would mean shifting players about and maybe upsetting the balance of the team.

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That's bad news. I think Meechan could provide cover for McMillan. Ross had to play centreback the other night and did well. The problem as I see it is no manager would want to introduce youngsters given the intensity of the games we'll be playing. As far as I'm aware we can't recall those out on loan. Brownlee (right centreback) has been injured lately anyway.

It looks to me that we'll have to have Meechan covering for McMillan and perhaps Mair (whether Jordan would move inside if Mair was out is an option).

Incidentally the left hand side is much the same. Keenan has had to cover the left centreback position as Lindsay is out on loan. Dale will be cover for ATS and Gabriel. He's had longer playing inside so if Mair got injured/suspended I think Gabby would move over to right centreback with Keenan coming in. The only other option I can see if one of the current back four is out is to play 3-5-2 with Elliott and ATS as wingbacks.

Sorry if that's all a bit confusing.

 

btw I see McMillan & ATS have 4 yellows, while Mair & Gabriel 3 apiece.

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Surely Bannigan would cover for ATS in the first instance?

 

Yes but as we've a couple of key guys missing from midfield we couldn't do that without unbalancing the team - since he got back into his current position Bannigan has been a key player there for most of the time. I know we could put say Craigen or Bauben in there but we'd be breaking up a good combination with Fraser. Similarly if Fraser moved to RB to cover there. Still if we had to we'd have to and we could probably get away with it provided we got 100% effort from everyone. I think we'd have a real problem if Mair or Piccolo went missing unless it was later in the run of 5 games and Balatoni could come in - he's expected to be available sometime soon.

Edited by Mr Bunny
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