Ian Murray has revealed Raith Rovers have added another defender to their signing wish list.
The Stark’s Park boss had already admitted the search is on for attacking reinforcements.
The Kirkcaldy outfit have been linked with St Johnstone striker Stevie May, who has been told he can leave McDiarmid Park.
But Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Hamilton Accies in the Premier Sports Cup highlighted deficiencies elsewhere in the squad.
With summer signing Paul Hanlon and Euan Murray sidelined through injury, Murray was forced to field left-back Liam Dick as a makeshift centre-half.
It was a scenario that played out regularly last season, when midfielder Scott Brown was also forced to slot back into the heart of the rearguard because of injuries to Keith Watson and Dylan Corr.
Hanlon has joined former Hibernian team-mate Lewis Stevenson and Callum Fordyce in bolstering Rovers’ defensive options this summer.
But Murray has confessed they still have some work to do in their recruitment as Saturday’s Championship opener against Airdrie approaches fast.
“We’re obviously trying to strengthen the forward areas, but there’s not a lot going about,” explained Murray.
Murray: ‘Bare bones’
“We might look for a little bit of cover in defence as well. We were down to the bare bones in that department at the weekend
“In fact, we were down to the bare bones in general. We had four outfield players and one of them was young Jake [Nicholson].”
Hanlon and Euan Murray were two of five players missing in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Hamilton that sealed Raith’s Premier Sports Cup fate.
Lewis Vaughan, Sam Stanton and Scott Brown were also absent. But they are expected to be involved in some capacity against Airdrie.
Boss Murray was disappointed that their replacements in the starting XI against Accies failed to take their chance to push for starts this weekend.
But one who did was winger Lewis Gibson, whose introduction after the break Murray has admitted gave him food for thought.
“Lewis was really, really good on Saturday,” added the Rovers manager. “He’s really direct and really aggressive in terms of the way he plays.
“He’s obviously not the finished article, he’s still fairly young.
“But what he does do is he’s very positive with his play and he tries to go forward.
“We saw that on Saturday. In the last half an hour the left-hand side was linking up again really, really well.”
