GOOD NEWS ..BRAD NEWS
Del’s delight at winning monthly award is spoiled by injuries to Lyons and Magennis
DEREK McINNES is adamant he wasn’t prepared to take risks with crocked duo Brad Lyons and Kyle Magennis.
The Kilmarnock boss backed up his Scottish Premiership Glen’s Manager of the Month for October with the December prize due to his side’s excellent form.
But McInnes’ enjoyment of that award has been diluted with the news over his impressive midfield pair.
Skipper Lyons has been ruled out for 10 by cRaig swan weeks after having surgery on a cartilage issue and his engine-room colleague Magennis could be out for even longer with a hamstring problem which also needed hospital attention.
McInnes admits it’s a painful setback as he said: “Brad and Magennis were really influential at the start, so to lose both lads, both similar in a sense that they have good physical attributes – No.8s that get about the pitch, is a big blow.
“It’s two players in the one position that we’d rather not deal with but we’ll deal with what we need to.
“Brad has done really well from the first minute of pre-season when he came back.
“He’d probably never played as many games as he would have hoped last season but he was pivotal to us towards the end of the campaign and staying up.
“He was rewarded with a two-year deal and we were actually in the process of maybe trying to get that extended. He’s become a full internationalist with Northern Ireland and he’s been really important. A lot of our bigger performances have come from him.
“It’s Brad’s cartilage. It had been nagging away for a wee while and he took a bang on it in a tackle against Dundee and he’s always going to be susceptible to that with the way he plays. “It’s just at an extent where it needed surgery.
“We were going to try and manage it until the end of the season before it but the best thing for Brad is to deal with it now and then he can come back fresh.
“Hopefully he still has a role to play before the end of the season and we have not ruled Kyle out from coming back before the end of the season.
“His strength scores were brilliant through his hamstrings. He did three weeks like a mini pre-season before he came back to train with us.
“But he’s damaged a different part of the muscle in the hamstring and we just decided for the boy’s sake going forward, rather than just cut corners, we would just get the operation and that’s what we have done.”
McInnes revealed the double loss has him now assessing another part of the transfer market but the focus remains on the attacking department.
He added: “Obviously, we’re just looking to maybe try and address that profile of midfielder if we can but first thing’s first is the forward area and I need to concentrate on that still.
“Every club in the world, every club in Scotland is looking for a striker. Everyone is in the same boat.”
McInnes is looking ahead to Saturday’s Scottish Cup clash with Dundee but the excellent top-flight form saw him land the manager trophy for the second month out of three.
Killie defeated Celtic and St Johnstone at home as well as impressive away wins over Aberdeen and St Mirren.
McInnes said: “Two or three teams did well through the month of December, so it was not something I was thinking about. “December was a tough month for us and the players came through it brilliantly with some big results.
“Any award like that in a campaign is just a reflection on the good work of everyone at the club.”
It’s two players in the one position that we’d rather not deal with DEREK MCINNES IS GUTTED BY INJURIES