Raith Rovers will assess Lewis Vaughan and Jamie Gullan ahead of Friday’s visit of Ayr United in the Scottish Championship.
The forwards missed last week’s draw at Queen’s Park with hamstring issues and both are doubts for the upcoming fixture.
The injuries are “notoriously” tricky to get over and manager Ian Murray may have to look to loanees Isma Goncalves and William Wkio again – both of whom are already off the mark.
“Jamie Gullan is still struggling a bit, Lewis Vaughan hasn’t recovered as quickly as we hoped,” Murray told Courier Sport.
“We’ll assess Lewis on Thursday but we thought he’d be further on than where he is now”.
The Rovers boss said he doesn’t expect any more loan players to come in between now and next week’s deadline.
Loan stars
Murray is happy that the club got loan deals done for Akio and Goncalves completed given the shortage of forward options.
“William and Isma have had another week’s training with us – especially William, he’s really looking like he’s getting up to speed,” he continued.
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“With Vonny and Hammer [Gullan] out, it’s probably just as well we done that because we’d probably be going into a game with no strikers!”
Rovers go into Friday’s match five points behind Ayr United having played a game more.
Lee Bullen’s men have been one of the surprise packages this season but will also be wary of the threat Raith pose.
Murray’s side are 13 matches unbeaten after last week’s draw away to Queen’s Park but have beaten Premiership opposition and reached the SPFL Trust Trophy final.
Ruthless
“He’s done well there in his first full season from where they were last season,” said the Raith manager.
“They got goalscorers in their team. They’re very good at the top end of the pitch.
“They’re quite directing and they’re good at it – and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.
“The last time we went down to Somerset we controlled the ball, if you like, but they were ruthless in both boxes which was the difference between the two teams.
“They’ll have one eye on the title, and rightly so.”
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