Hibs goalkeeper Ofir Marciano ruled out until new year

Hibernian goalkeeper Ofir Marciano has been ruled out until the new year with a knee problem for which he will undergo a 'tidy up' operation on Monday, revealed manager Neil Lennon yesterday as he admitted that 'injuries are starting to mount' at the '¨Easter Road side.

Hibernian's Ofir Marciano has a knee problem. Picture: Roddy Scott/SNS

The Royal Excel Mouscron loanee joins John McGinn, Fraser Fyvie, James Keatings and Alex Harris on the sidelines, while a decision has still to be made on French trialist Enzo Reale, who has been training at the club this week as Lennon seeks midfield reinforcements. However, he will not look to add a keeper in Marciano’s absence with Ross Laidlaw given the chance to step up once more.

“Ofir’s injury is short term and hopefully he will only be out until the end of the month,” said Lennon, whose team aim to bounce back from the defeat by Dundee United last week when they host Dumbarton tomorrow.

“We will just run with the two [goalkeepers] that we have at the minute. Ross Laidlaw has done well in every game that he has played. He is a very competent back-up goalkeeper but he knows his role within the squad and he will fill in for the time being unless we decide to make a change.

“It is an important phase and that is why we are looking at options to bring in and if we can strengthen in certain areas we will try and do that. We are short of bodies in the midfield and McGinn and Fyvie have been an integral part of the way we have played in the last few weeks.

“They were a miss against Dundee United in a game of that magnitude. [But] we didn’t play that badly. We didn’t deserve to lose the game and it was a tale of two penalties. If we score we would probably go on to win the game. That was the only real disappointment.”