Hibernian manager Lee Johnson would love to find a replacement for Martin Boyle in the January transfer window - but insists his priority will be offloading fringe players.
The Easter Road boss admits he has been left with a bloated squad following his signing spree following his arrival in the summer.
Johnson recruited 14 first-team players and now has a first-team pool of around 28 players.
The capital outfit have so far used 30 players across their League Cup and Premiership matches and have the returning Kevin Nisbet to add to their options when the top-flight resumes against Rangers a week on Thursday.
Boyle will be missing for that game and for at least the remainder of the campaign after pre-existing anterior cruciate ligament damage was discovered during a cartilage operation on duty with Australia at the World Cup in Qatar.
And Johnson has confessed his options in trying to find a back-up to the winger could be limited by the numbers he already has in his squad.
He said: “We can do our best to replace him [Boyle] but he is one of our stellar signings isn’t he? If this was the MLS he would be our ‘marquee’ player.
“We just can’t cope in terms of maximising ourselves without our best players fit. Every team, everywhere in the land gets injuries but if you are lucky it’s not to your best players.
“That bit has been disappointing but at the same time it gives other players opportunities.
“With two thirds of the season to play, and a very important cup opportunity, we have that laser focus on that prime 14, 15 players and getting the best out of those.
“We believe in the ones we’ve got - get them physically right and make them feel a million dollars.”
He added: “The first thing we need to do is trim the squad. We’ve got far too many players at the club and far too many players who I don’t see as infiltrating the first-team over the short to medium term.
“It can cause you problems when you have an overinflated squad, because people want to play football.”
READ MORE:
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here