Airdrie captain: Injury crisis like nothing I've seen but experienced players need to guide youngsters through storm

Airdrie captain Adam Frizzell says it is up to the experienced players in the squad to pull them out of the mire in the face of their ongoing injury crisis.

The depleted Diamonds have been beset by injuries to key men, including player-boss Rhys McCabe, and Frizzell feels that has contributed to their rotten run of form that leaves them with one win from their last 16 games, seven points adrift of Dunfermline at the foot of the Championship.

They host Livingston today aiming to avoid a seventh straight league defeat and the midfielder says the old heads in the team need to guide their young side through the storm.

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He said: “I’ve never been involved in an injury crisis like it. The number of players we’ve had out is incredible, I can’t actually believe it.

“It is very difficult because we’ve had our back four and Dean McMaster pulled out from under our feet over the last couple of months.

“There’s been a couple of weeks where we’ve only had 12 players fit and had to fill the bench with youngsters.

“So it is very difficult, especially when it is already a young team in general.

“But this is where it is up to myself and the older players to pull us through this sticky phase.

“We’ve been in a rut for a while and we need to get out of it quickly because the Championship is a very unforgiving league when you find yourself in a situation like we do.

“The players who have come in have done okay. But it takes a bit of time for players to adapt to the way we play, trying to play out from the back. It doesn’t happen overnight, it takes a lot of work.

“The confidence is down at the moment but I fully believe that once we get our full squad back, we can start to chip away at the teams above us and climb that table.”

Last week’s 1-0 defeat to Dunfermline compounded their recent woes but Frizzell insisted he saw signs that Airdrie were finding their feet again.

He added: “At Dunfermline last week our heads dropped a bit when they scored, but there were definitely signs that we are getting back in our groove.

“I thought in the second half we were probably the better team.

“It has been frustrating the last couple of months because we’ve felt we’ve been very much in the games.

“But things are just not going our way at the moment. Only we can change that.”