Plymouth Argyle head coach Wayne Rooney says he and his staff are examining why there are so many injuries in the Pilgrims’ squad.
Argyle were thrashed 6-1 at Norwich City in the Championship on Tuesday night and Rooney says his side is “down to the bare bones”.
Defender Lewis Gibson joined an injury list that also includes Ryan Hardie, Morgan Whittaker, Brendan Galloway, Conor Hazard, Ibrahim Cissoko and Muhamed Tijani.
Top scorer Whittaker will not make the trip to Bristol City on Saturday while Gibson and Hardie are doubtful and the others remain long-term absentees.
Rooney says he and his staff have even gone back through training data from previous seasons to see if they can pinpoint anything that may need changing.
“The injury situation is something I’m looking into and why we’re picking up so many,” Rooney told BBC Sport.
“It’s not just one or two, it’s injuries to more than half the starting line-up if all fit, so I think that’s where we are.
“We haven’t got the squad and that’s something we need to evolve over the next few years and get the squad right, try to develop it, but that takes time.”
Despite the injury situation, Rooney maintains the performance at Norwich was unacceptable.
The Pilgrims conceded six times, but it could have been far more as Norwich impressed in attack, especially in the first half.
“The amount of time I speak to players and they come up and believe they should be playing, it’s really important that when players come into the team they take their opportunity,” Rooney said.
“I don’t think any of the 11 players who started the last game did themselves any favours with that.
“But the reaction now is really important. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve got an opportunity now on Saturday to try to put that right.”
Argyle have one of the smallest budgets in the Championship and stayed up on the final day of last season.
They are currently two places and two points off the relegation spots with just six points separating Luton Town in 16th place from bottom-of-the-table Portsmouth.
“We need to be realistic in terms of where we’re at,” added Rooney.
“We know what our goal is for the season, we’ve got a plan and where we’re at, at the minute we’re on plan.
“I think we are where we should be, obviously the table doesn’t lie from that point of view.
“But whether you’ve got a small budget or not you have to have that desire, that fight, to not concede goals as easy as we do, and I think that’s a responsibility on myself to make sure I bring that out of the players, and on Tuesday that didn’t happen.”