AN injury crisis at Marlow has left manager Kevin Stone down to the bare bones.

He’s had to fit square pegs into round holes with a number of midfielders sitting on the sidelines, resulting in two defeats and eight goals conceded in their two games this week.

A 5-0 home thumping by Barton Rovers on Saturday – where Stone admitted his side “were lucky to get nil” – was followed by a midweek 3-1 loss at Biggleswade Town.

The Blues boss said: “We can’t get the same 11 players on the pitch each game. We’ve got a few missing in the same area and when you have three or four missing you don’t carry that quality in depth.

“One or two are short of confidence or lacking form but I haven’t got a big enough squad with the injuries to leave them out.

“Leigh Mason is out for the season, Johnny Isaacs is out, Adam Dickens’ foot flares up now and again and he can’t play every week. Their influence is big to us and to be without those three our quality is stretched to the limit and that makes it tough for us.

“If they are all training and available I have a fantastic midfield to pick from. We don’t have a massive squad. They’re decent enough players, as we proved at the start of the season, but it’s crept up on us now.

“Mitchel Woodward went to Burnham after saying, ‘We’ve got such a good midfield I’m not getting as many games as I’d like’, and sod’s law he’s gone and we don’t have numbers in midfield.”

He added: “Adam Dickens will be suspended in a couple of weeks after getting ten bookings and Stuart MacLellan is on nine so it could get worse. We’ve just got too many quality players stood watching at the moment.”

It’s not just in midfield where Stone is having bad luck with injuries, with his defence and attack weakened before Tuesday’s trip to Biggleswade.

Stone said: “We went to Biggleswade minus Jermaine Roche and Ben Hudell, who both would have started, and within quarter of an hour Adam Dickens had to come off with a dead leg.”

He added: “Last year we had our youth team captain James Burrell playing and he was with us at the start of the season then popped a cruciate. He’s training with us again now but we may as well leave him until next season now.

“I loaned Craig Roberts to Penn and he’s waiting to see a specialist to see if he needs a cruciate op.”

Marlow are away to third-placed Arlesey Town tomorrow.