Down to the bare bones
Boss Goodwin is facing major injury crisis
Vaclav Hladky’s skill over the second half of the season is worth more to St Mirren than any fee they’ll receive for him this transfer window.
That is the view of Buddies manager Jim Goodwin, after MLS outfit Houston Dynamo had an initial £200,000 offer knocked back.
And he is hoping he can still count on fan favourite Hladky between the sticks come 2020.
He said:“To replace Vaclav with a goalkeeper of a similar level wouldn’t be possible with the money that we would have available.
“Financially staying in this league would likely outweigh any bid that we’re going to get. So the ideal situation for us as a club is to hold on to him. I speak regularly with Vaclav and the club does the same with his representatives and we’re all quite relaxed about the situation.
“We have contingency plans in place in case he does leave next month, but I think it’s too difficult a position to replace.
“I understand that every player has a value. If someone comes in with a stupid offer that’s far too good to turn down then of course we’d consider it.
“But we wouldn’t consider any bids for any of our players if it was going to leave us weaker for the second half of the season.
“To take a lump sum for a player in January and then leave yourself in danger of being relegated wouldn’t make any sense.”
St Mirren gaffer Jim Goodwin is praying he doesn’t have to resort to drafting in academy kids as the club’s injury list continues to grow.
Winger Kyle McAllister has been ruled out of the St Johnstone game on Saturday, with the hamstring injury he picked up leaving the Saints manager with just 12 fit bodies available for training yesterday.
And while he joked it wasn’t a serious enough situation to warrant pulling back on his boots, he’s hoping to welcome back at least a couple of the seven absentees before making the trip to Perth.
“It’s the walking wounded here at the minute,” he told Express Sport.
“On Tuesday I only had 12 players training. I’ve got seven on the sidelines injured.
“It’s just the position we’re in at the minute, every injury has come at once.
“Kyle McAllister is away for a scan. We’ll know by the end of the week hopefully what the extent of it is.
“We’re not really sure what it is yet, to be honest. He never felt anything in the game, he just felt his back stiffen up.
“Sam Foley and Paul McGinn are getting closer every day. Hopefully we’ll have them back for the weekend but there’s no guarantees.
“It needs to change over the next couple of days because I only had 12 outfield players at training , one of them being Scott Glover.
“I’ll maybe have to raid the academy again for this weekend. I might even need to register myself at this rate. But things aren’t quite that bad yet.”
Despite missing several key players, particularly in defence, the Buddies have managed to pick up a crucial win over Hamilton and rescue a draw against Livingston in the last two weeks.
And Goodwin believes his resolute side have adoped a “seige mentality” to keep the points flowing despite the absentees.
He said: “We’re putting square pegs in round holes over the last couple of weeks but in fairness to the players they’ve done what we’ve asked them to do and we’re sitting here with four points from our last six.
“I was in a similar situation at Alloa a couple of years ago.
“I was talking to Lee Sharp about it, who was there with me, and you feel you’re hard done by at the time with all the injuries to key players.
“But it’s amazing how other people within the group just step up. You ask one or two to play out of position and they just do it and do it well.
“You end up with that siege mentality where you want to show people what a mentally strong group you are.
“I think the boys have shown that in abundance in recent weeks, all the way back to the Ross County game where we won after going behind. Thankfully in the last couple of games we’ve managed to pick up some important points.”
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