Livingston boss David Martindale admits he’d be ‘gutted’ if an ankle injury prevented striker Bruce Anderson from breaking the club’s Premiership scoring record.
The 23-year-old picked up an ankle injury in training earlier in the week and has twice been sent for scans to find the extent of the damage.
Signed from Aberdeen in the summer, the striker had been in stunning form of late - bagging seven goals in his last 13 appearances for the club and being named the Premiership Player of the Month for February.
That purple patch has Anderson sitting on 11 league goals for the campaign and sits one behind Derek Lilley’s club-best figure of 12 in a top flight season from the 2003/04 season.
The gaffer confessed a best case scenario could see Anderson miss three weeks but it could be longer.
He commented: “I think Bruce is in a really good run of form and this has probably happened at the peak of him playing this season.
“He’s kind of hit the ground running since January. It’s a wee bit of a sore one for Bruce personally, he was chasing the goal scoring record.
“I’m gutted for him and also the team. We need to wait on the results and see how long he’ll be out.”
He added: “The bit of hope you’re holding onto is that he might only be out for a couple of weeks but I don’t think so.
“It was so innocuous. There was no contact, the ball was at the other side of the park and he went down, we heard him scream and thought he was kidding on.
“He got a scan but the swelling was too big and he was due to get a further one. We have to try and stay as positive as possible.”
The Lions make the trip to Hearts tomorrow firmly in the mix for a third successive top six finish and the boss says he will avoid the temptation of looking at the league table and trying to figure out all the different permutations with just one point separating six sides with three games remaining before the split.
He said: “I think you have to worry about yourself. Six points gets you top six, three points might get you in the top six, four points, who knows.
“We have some difficult games, we’ve not taken any points from Hearts this year, not taken any from Motherwell and then St Johnstone, who are fighting for their lives.
“The focus has to be to go to Tynecastle and try and pick points up.”
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