Mounting injuries no distraction for Edinburgh City boss Gary Naysmith

Edinburgh City Manager Gary Naysmith (Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group)

The fifth-placed Citizens are missing a number of key players including captain Robbie McIntyre, Danny Handling and long-term absentee Allan Smith to name a few.

Defender Lee Hamilton then limped off during the first half of last Friday's 2-2 draw with Stirling Albion and was replaced by Lewis Toshney, who only lasted until the half-time interval before he was deemed unable to continue by the club's medical staff. His replacement Danny Jardine, was the next to be forced off just after the hour mark in a sequence that left Naysmith scratching his head.

However, the former Hearts and Everton full-back insisted he'd rather focus on the players he does have available who can influence results out on the pitch.

Ahead of tomorrow's trip to in-form Annan Athletic, Naysmith said: "Our recent form has been very pleasing and the players deserve an enormous amount of credit for the results that we have been getting especially when we have been missing a number of players for one reason or another.

"I felt last week against Stirling we lost our focus because of the injuries. We couldn't really find a flow in the game, we maybe had one or two chances but I'm going to put that down to the constant disruption to the team.

"I think when you take all that into account, I think it was a good point. We have to look at the positives that we scored two good goals and it keeps that wee mini run going that we're on which has seen us take ten points from our last five matches. We always want to win every game but that just doesn't happen in football.

"We face a really tough game against Annan tomorrow. They are on a tremendous run of form and travelling to Annan, it is never an easy place to go and get a win, so we will need to be at our best to get three points. Once again, we will have several players unavailable due to injuries."

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