Dundalk manager Vinny Perth has said the club are "in a dark place" with "no light at the end of the tunnel" after their season sunk to a new low last night.
The Lilywhites were expected to challenge for the title at the start of 2021 but are now battling to avoid the relegation play-off despite having one of the biggest budgets in the history of the League of Ireland.
Dundalk currently sit in ninth place and will face a First Division side if they cannot catch a team above them in the closing months of the campaign.
The club offloaded players in the summer window after huge investment and now an injury crisis has left them with a vastly reduced player pool.
Two goalkeepers were among the seven substitutes named last night and while the starting XI comprised all senior players, and the likes of Michael Duffy, Han Jeong-woo and Ryan O'Kane were brought on, the situation is worsening.
Duffy had been rated as doubtful for last night’s game and would otherwise be a regular. Han was sent off in stoppage time, while Daniel Cleary will also serve a suspension for Tuesday night’s re-arranged game in Sligo.
Wilfried Zahibo, Patrick McEleney, David McMillan, Brian Gartland, Darragh Leahy, Daniel Kelly and Sean Murray are currently on the injury list and Perth said none will be available in the short-term.
Speaking to DundalkFC.com, Perth said it’s a "bizarre" scenario as they lost to nine-man Longford – a team which had not won in 25 league matches.
"It’s just bizarre. It’s bizarre situation in terms of the club, in terms of losing players and things not going our way. I think Longford had a shot and a half in the entire 90 minutes and we’ve lost 1-0 when we should be 4-0 up after 10 minutes.
"We have no bench. Pat Hoban got out of bed to play the game tonight. It’s all excuses but I’ve never seen anything like it with 10 or 11 first-team players out.
"When we played the last European game we have a squad of 21. We’re missing 10 of them. We just have to dig in, take it on the chin and stick together. There’s no point me hammering the lads at this stage. We have to accept we are where we are.
"We tried, we emptied our bench, there’s nothing else we can do. It’s just a difficult night."
Dundalk’s best form this season came in European competition as they progressed through two rounds and then took Dutch side Vitesse Arnhem all the way over two legs, missing chances to cause a huge upset.
Vitesse have gone on qualify for the group stages of the Conference League while Dundalk sink further into the relegation mire in Ireland.
Perth said the change in the players available to him has made the difference.
"The only explanation is we haven’t got the team that lost to Vitesse Arnhem. We haven’t got the squad, the bench or the players. It’s as simple as that.
"When you’re training with eight or nine players, you’re going to struggle. We’re in a dark place at the moment but we have to stick together.
"People can jump up and down as much as they want but this club has been in a lot worse situations than this and we need to stick together."
As Dundalk face third-place Sligo on Tuesday, an FAI Cup quarter-final on Friday in Donegal against Finn Harps, and two more games before the end of the month against the Bit O’ Red and Bohemians, Perth said he is concerned about the injury crisis worsening.
Academy players may be called upon to play and not just complete the squad – a scenario hard to fathom give the resources the Lilywhites started this season having played in the Europa League in 2020.
Perth revealed: "It does worry me because we are one or two more away from a real disaster where we would have to field three or four Under-19 players in our starting XI.
"If it was muscle injuries I’d say fair enough (to rest the remainder), but what do I do, not train the players?
"You see Daniel Kelly being carried off on a stretcher and it was as simple as jogging across a pitch and rolling his ankle, where he has done damage to it. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel and we have to dig in.
"We’d be prefer not to play matches at the moment and get out bodies back but that is not going to happen. We have to deal with what is thrown at us.
"It’s going to be the same 10, 11, 12 players and it’s not going to be anything different. We just have to get the very best out of them."
