The Farmer’s Boys went out of the Scottish Cup at the weekend — losing 1-0 to Shettleston — they were without as many as six players for the tie.

Whiteford doesn’t expect any of those players to return to the side for this weekend’s league fixture away to Greenock, a crucial tie with Neilston sitting second bottom and teams around them starting to pick up points.

Despite adding striker Robbie Cameron and midfielder Barry Tulloch to the Neilston ranks in recent weeks, Whiteford is hoping to add more signings to that list.

He said: “We’ve got six missing, potentially all six will miss this week again. There’s a chance one might come back we’ll assess that in training.

“They’ve been out for a number of weeks though so they won’t automatically be ready to go and play in such a big game for us.

“We are looking to add to the players we have already brought in, for the short term at least if not until the end of the season. I’ll be doing what I can this week to sort that out. I’ve made a couple of enquires, there is nothing concrete at the moment so I wouldn’t like to go into more detail at the moment.” Neilston injury crisis has coincided with a poor run of form which has left them five points from safety in the relegation zone of the Super League First Division and Whiteford admits getting cut adrift is a concern.

He said: “A few league games at the weekend didn’t really go our way. Greenock is a massive game for us, it is the difference between becoming detached — needing two or three wins to even get close to getting out the bottom four — or if we win we’re definitely only one win from doing that.”