Connah’s Quay Nomads are set to face Alashkert in the second leg of their Champions League First Qualifying round tie with seven players missing from last week’s 2-2 draw.
The 2020/21 Cymru Premier champions headed out to Armenia on Tuesday morning and have been training at their opponent’s stadium ahead of Wednesday’s crucial tie where Nomads manager Andy Morrison has been able to analyse his surroundings.
With the Nomads looking to claim another European scalp with an away victory in Armenia, his task has become that much more difficult with it being revealed that he will be missing seven players from last week’s matchday squad.
“It’s tough, that’s football,” said the former Manchester City defender.
“These things come along to test you and we are in unprecedented times, COVID has caused so many problems in so many areas.
“With the isolation period once home with it being an amber (listed) country, we’ve got lads who can’t take the best part of two weeks off work.
“So they’ve not been able to come, we’ve had a couple of injuries from last week and a couple of the squad players are still suffering from COVID.
“We’ve had to call in a couple of the youth team, a couple of seventeen-year-olds have come in. We can make five subs but we have three outfield players and two of them are seventeen-year-olds. “
Morrison said: “Since we set off this morning it’s been great. The hotel is great, the opposition has been very hospitable and we are really pleased.
“Great stadium and obviously a fantastic pitch, so everything to look forward to.”
Despite the difficulties Morrison has had to face, the situation will be all too familiar to their last European campaign when they faced Dinamo Tbilisi where the Nomads boss was faced with injury woes and COVID-19 cases within the camp which left him with 14 available players to select from on matchday.
“That’s what we are up against, we’ve had the problems before, Tbilisi last year, and we found a way to be competitive.
“What’s really important is that the eleven that start and the boys that are involved in the squad give everything they’ve got and I’ll accept whatever comes along.”
It has yet to been revealed who the seven players are, however, Morrison will now be left with little luxury to chose from on the bench with Aron Williams and two youth team players available should the Nomads boss be looking to change things during the match.