St Johnstone forward Michael Coulson has suffered an injury set-back.
Perth boss Tommy Wright had hoped to welcome the former York City man back to training about now but, instead, his spell on the sidelines is set to be doubled.
“Michael Coulson is out for another four to six weeks,” Wright reported.
“The injury wasn’t responding as well as we’d have liked and he was sent for a scan which showed the area affected is the tendon rather than the calf and that takes longer to heal.
“Michael has had a tough time of it.
“It is harder for a new signing and he has come up from England. But it’s part and parcel of football and he just has to accept it.
“He is doing all he can to get fit and hopefully he can finish the season strongly for us.”
Wright added: “Tam Scobbie hurt his ankle in training but he will join in again on Thursday.
“Ally Gilchrist has had another setback and is looking at another four weeks out.
“Liam Gordon is on loan to Peterhead but his calf has flared up and he didn’t play for them at the weekend. We will have to assess how long he is going to be out to be fair to Peterhead.
“We had a sickness bug going the rounds last week. Danny Swanson and Murray Davidson were both kept away from the ground with the flu. Danny was off for four or five days, he was really bad. But they are both back in this week.”
Saints have been back in training for a week and Wright is yet to make his mind up whether the January break has been a help or a hindrance.
“We won’t know if the break has been a benefit or not,” he admitted.
“In a perfect world it would have been nice to go away for a bit of warm weather training but like a lot of other clubs we don’t have the budget for that and we are realists. I think only three or four of the 12 clubs got away.
“The players have had a week off and some went way on holiday, others stayed at home with their families. We were quite lucky here last week with the weather and were able to get the work done that we needed. And the attitude of the players was good.
“Ironically, after being off for three weeks we are going into a period of five games in a fortnight.
“The authorities will ask for feedback. We have a managers’ meeting here tomorrow and I’m sure that will be on the agenda for discussion. I’d rather have a longer break in the summer.
“But now all our focus has to be on the cup tie with Stenhousemuir. Everything is geared towards that.”
