St Mirren 'down to bare bones' in defence after Charles Dunne injury

St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson admits he is down to “the bare bones” in defence after injury ruled Charles Dunne out for the rest of the year.

Dunne suffered the injury against St Johnstone ten days ago and a scan has shown a tendon issue that will take around eight weeks to recover from, ruling the centre-back out of important games and taking him almost up to the end of his short-term contract.

The injury is another headache for Robinson after a series of off-field events have hit the club.

Kevin van Veen’s loan deal was terminated after he was charged with domestic abuse and defender Shaun Rooney’s contract with St Mirren was ripped up after he was charged with assaulting a teenager.

Wing-back Jaden Brown is currently unavailable as the club complete an investigation into his arrest over driving offences.

Those circumstances, along with Alex Iacovitti’s long-term injury, mean Dunne’s absence leave Robinson working with only a handful of fit and available defenders.

“We had a blow with Charles, we had him re-scanned and looked at and he’s going to be out eight weeks with a tendon injury, which is a big, big blow to us obviously with losing defenders for numerous reasons,” Robinson explained ahead of Saturday’s trip to face Hibernian.

“We’re down to the bare bones in terms of centre-halves and obviously Jaden’s still not available and we’ve lost the other two players as well.

“The defensive positions are a concern for us at the moment, but other than that, injury-wise people are coming back to fitness in the forward areas and midfield areas. We’ll be very light in defensive numbers between now and Christmas.”

Robinson admitted that the series of events that have rocked the club had made for a difficult time as manager but he said that he believes hard work can see the team overcome the challenges.

“It’s things that they don’t teach on the Pro Licence course, I have to be honest with you,” he said. “I think they need to rewrite the book on how to teach managers.

“You learn, you cope with it, you deal with it. The way I look at it is I deal with the people that I can deal with and I’m in control of.

“We’ve got a fantastic bunch of boys here that are fighting and scrapping for each other.

“Bad luck can continue forever. So we don’t believe in that, we believe in working hard and overturning that bad luck.”