JIM Duffy feels there can’t be many teams who have suffered as many injuries as his Morton side this season.

The Cappielow club have been without the services of Frank McKeown for the most of the campaign due to a training ground incident that saw him suffer extensive knee ligament damage.

Veteran striker Peter MacDonald also underwent surgery on his knee this term and has been missing since early October.

Meanwhile, Michael Tidser, Thomas O’Ware, Joe McKee, Mark Russell, Ricki Lamie, Romario Sabajo and Derek Gaston have all spent more than a month on the sidelines at various stages.

That bad fortune reared its head again of late, with incidents involving widemen Bobby Barr and Stefan McCluskey summing up the situation.
And Duffy told the Tele: “We’ve been hampered by injuries. I think we’ve been hindered by injuries more than just about anybody else.

“Obviously we’ve had the longer-term injuries with Peaso and Frank and I think this is the second time Michael’s been injured this season. He missed the first six weeks of the season and has missed another six weeks. That’s 12 or 13 weeks.

“Gats missed two spells as well. He missed four weeks and then another six weeks before coming back in against St Mirren.

“Ricki’s another one. He was playing really well and then got injured and was out for six weeks, and these types of things are frustrating because you want to have as much strength in depth as you can.

“One, it helps your competition within the squad because there are good players, and two, it gives you different options when the need arises.

“If you look at our subs from the St Mirren game, it was an unbelievably young bench: Lewis Strapp, John Tennent, Jai Quitongo, Jamie McGowan …

“Jon Scullion who is part of the first-team squad has been unavailable. He injured the muscle at the top of his thigh in training, so we’ve been pretty stretched.

“It’s not about excuses, but in terms of looking at it over the course of a period of four months or so we’ve had an awful lot of injures. 

“There’s been very, very few weeks that we’ve had a healthy complement of players. We’ve always had three or four missing pretty much since the start of the season and that’s continued.

“We have been pretty harshly treated by injuries, but there’s nothing you can do. It’s part and parcel of football and you’ve got to get on with it.”

When asked if there was a timescale on the likes of MacDonald, McKeown or Tidser returning to action, Duffy said: “Peaso and Frank are still at the stage they are doing gym work and are both a good way off at the moment.

“But I haven’t put a timescale on any of the players, and never do, because as soon as you do it can be a double-negative if the player hasn’t recovered by then or they go and train and there’s a reaction.”