Barry Wilson admits Caley Thistle are sweating over possible defensive injuries after selling Coll Donaldson and Jamie McCart to Premiership clubs.
The Inverness first team coach said the club was hopeful that knocks sustained by Shaun Rooney and Kevin McHattie in Saturday’s draw with Alloa would prove to be minor.
McHattie took a blow to his hip, while Rooney also suffered a hefty one along with winger Aaron Doran in a tough 90 minutes against the part-timers.
With new signing Lewis Toshney cup-tied for this weekend’s Scottish Cup visit of Livingston, the Highlanders would be down to Brad Mckay and left-backs Carl Tremarco and Cameron Harper in defence if Rooney and McHattie can’t make it.
In those circumstances, they might be forced to draft in ex-Hearts striker Nikolay Todorov at centre-back, while midfielder David Carson has deputised in the past at right-back.
Wilson said: “The three of them were struggling – Doran, Rooney and McHattie – so we’ll need to see how they recover this week.
“Doran took quite a heavy challenge from the lad Jon Robertson going straight through him. Kevin has a knock on the hip, and Rooney got a knock too. We’ll need to nurse them through the week because we have the Scottish Cup on Saturday.
“We’ll need to regroup because the squad is thin defensively in particular. We’ve pulled back Cameron Harper from Elgin but Lewis Toshney is cup-tied for next week. Hopefully Kevin, Brad and Shaun will be fine.
“It is always the way. With Coll Donaldson and Jamie McCart leaving, all of a sudden sod’s law ensures that’s the areas where you get injuries. But I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
Wilson has complete faith in the ability of Mckay and McHattie to forge a string centre defensive partnership after Donaldson joined Ross County and McCart went to St Johnstone this month.
He said: “They are new as a first team pairing, but they are flatmates so they’ve got an understanding.
“They were basically our two centre-halves in the North Cup and they’ve played probably seven or eight games together there.
“We’ve had no problem putting them in there and they’ve slotted in fine. It was in the forward areas on Saturday that we needed a little bit more and were a bit shy in producing.”