The Forgotten Man

Graeme Souness says cover for his injury-hit defence is a priority he must put first.

Souness: 'Realistically, we have to think that Steven Taylor is not going to be playing again this season.

'With Craig Moore's ongoing problems - although he says it feels a lot better now than it's ever done and he should be back in full training in two weeks - if anything was to happen to any of our centre-halves, that's an area that would be a priority for us.

'Then again, we have got Amady Faye away at the African Nations Cup, we have got Scott down and another couple of injuries there, so that's another area we'd like to strengthen in. And then there's Michael Owen.

'We'd like to strengthen in most areas, but I'm not unique in that, I think all managers would be saying the same thing.

'We have to be realistic. At the start of the season, we didn't have a big enough squad and Lady Luck has been unkind to us, so we are now down to the bare bones. As I understand it, we don't have a lot of money to spend and we have to do some wheeling and dealing if we are to bring some new faces in.

'We spent a lot of money in the summer, but unfortunately for us, we are missing lots of players at this time. I'm like every other manager, I'd like to bring more players in at this break, but if we can't do it, we can't do it and we wiill have to soldier on with what we have got.'

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