Hamilton boss Stuart Taylor says he's getting some of his injured stars back in training, but is still missing a number of key players as he prepares for Saturday's Championship visit to Partick Thistle.
Midfielder Scott Martin returned as a second-half substitute in Saturday's 3-0 defeat at home to Raith Rovers, but Taylor says playmaker David Templeton has hit a potentially major set-back, and striker Andy Winter is still some way off.
Defender Matthew Shiels hasn't featured since his summer move from Rangers, and Taylor revealed that his recent subs' bench cameo in the 1-1 draw with Arbroath was a 'false dawn' for the 21-year-old.
But Taylor says defender Jamie Hamilton could be on his way back, following a heart scare in that same game.
He said: "We are missing a number of key players. We've had Shielsy on the bench, and in all honesty I've spoken to him.
"He has been out for 11 months, and to go and put him on the bench without playing in any of the games is very unfair on him, but I had a chat with him and we came to the agreement that we would put him on the bench in that hope that he doesn't need to come on, but that's him preparing, mentally, for games.
"It was either that or leave a spare place on the bench, and we didn't want to do that.
"It's also to give him that lift of being about the squad.
"We've been missing quite a few players and thankfully they're all starting to come back and be in about things.
"Andy Winter has been training really, really well, but again he needs games.
"There is news on David Templeton but it's not positive.
"Temps is going to go for a scan today, just to see if there's anything else there that has maybe been overlooked, so we'll wait for the results to come back, which should normally be tomorrow.
"With Jamie Hamilton, we're waiting for word back. Obviously there's certain criteria we have to stick to and we're waiting on one of the doctors to phone us back today. Hopefully he does, and we get good news."
Scott Martin replaced Ronan Hughes after 56 minutes of Saturday's 3-0 home defeat to Raith Rovers, ending a seven-month lay-off for the former Hibs star, and Taylor says it's like a new signing.
He said: "I had never worked with him, he's never played since I've come in.
"Scott has been on a very long recovery programme, he's done very well in terms of the training data that has been put towards him and he's come through everything.
"We tried to arrange a game for him a couple of weeks ago, that game had to be cancelled. It's very unusual to bring someone back, to play them in a game without having played rehab games, if you want to call it that, but we looked at his training data and were very careful in what we did.
"It turned out to be the right decision. We were looking really at 15-20 minutes but we brought him on a wee bit earlier and I thought he did very well in the game, and it was pleasing for him to get through it and train the next day, which was very good.
"Most importantly, he didn't have any adverse effects to it, so he's getting stronger every day, which is brilliant."
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