David Healy is hoping the next few weeks brings some relief for Linfield as the club currently experiences a horrific injury crisis.
After beating Ballymena United last week Healy joked that the medical department at Windsor Park has a revolving door fitted as he no sooner gets players back from injury to then lose some more.
The Blues head to Larne this evening for a crucial Irish Premiership clash with Healy having to do without key duo Euan East and Kyle McClean, who are the latest to land on the treatment table which doesn't look like freeing up any time soon.
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"You seem to get one or two back then lose a couple more," said the Blues boss. "Euan missed out against Ballymena, he got injured in training in the run up to the game and it looks like he will potentially miss the next three or four weeks, which is desperate news.
"Kyle also missed the Ballymena game and is going to be unavailable for the Larne game too and probably the next five or six weeks as well. Terry Hayes has been at the club for 40-odd years as a player and then on to Head of Medical and he's never seen it as bad.
"We can only hope that over the next five or six weeks we start to see the likes of Stevie Fallon, Ben Hall, Sam Roscoe and Robbie McDaid back. The ones we've picked up in the last week are certainly going to be out for a period of time."
The Blues currently lead the Invermen by 11 points in the table, but tonight's opponents have three games in hand on the league leaders. Healy's men dominated the meeting between the sides earlier in the season before succumbing to a late Conor McKendry goal and the Linfield boss is expecting another tough test.
"Any time you play Larne, home or away, you know how difficult it's going to be and what the challenges are," he said. "We'll go through the game from last week and prepare as we always do and make sure we're prepared for a real tough battle down there.
"Winning games is not easy, it's certainly not easy at the minute. We're in a league where all the teams are very competitive It was hard-fought against Ballymena. What was important was we backed up last week's second half performance away to Carrick.
"Ballymena had been in decent form albeit they had dropped off a little bit in recent weeks. During that winning run they had beaten all the top teams so it was an important three points. It was a tough day as we expected but we got the outcome we wanted in the end."
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