Elgin City manager Gavin Price insists leading scorer Shane Sutherland will be eased back to action following his month-long injury lay-off.
Forward Sutherland is back in contention for today’s League 2 match at home to Stirling Albion, having been sidelined since the 3-0 win over Cove Rangers on February 8 with a hamstring injury.
Although Sutherland came through training unscathed on Thursday, Price is wary of the Black and Whites’ busy upcoming schedule, with today’s game followed by another home match against Cowdenbeath on Tuesday, before Brechin City visit Borough Briggs next Saturday.
Price, who has fellow striker Smart Osadolor back after he was unavailable for last week’s 2-1 win over Albion Rovers, said: “Shane trained on Thursday and got through it fine.
“We will need to box clever with how we use him over the next week. Three games in seven days might be asking too much of him, so we will just have to be wary of how we do that.
“Smart is desperate to be involved. He has looked really good coming off the bench in games, and got the winner for us at Brechin.
“He is desperate to play so he was frustrated last week.
“We’ve got a full squad available and we will need that over the next week.
“We have good options all over. We are going to have a really strong bench whatever happens.
“I’ve got some difficult decisions to make over the starting line-up, but I’ve made the players aware it’s going to be a squad effort to get us through the last 10 games – and in particular the next week.
“We will be keeping it fresh.”
Fifth-placed City are just a point ahead of today’s visitors, with both teams looking to keep up their charge for a promotion play-off spot.
Price predicts fine margins could determine this afternoon’s encounter, adding: “We have beaten them twice, and they have beaten us twice this season.
“The last two in particular have been tight games, they edged the one at Borough Briggs which we were a bit unfortunate to lose.
“We did the same at Forthbank, so I expect a really tight, close game.
“Stirling don’t concede a lot of goals, they are well organised and have a lot of good attacking players as well.
“We know what we are going to be up against.
“We have been winning these tight games in the second half of the season so far, so long may that continue.”
