Bala's European preparations hit by injuries

Colin Caton has been Bala Town manager since 2003

Bala Town manager Colin Caton is looking to add to his squad after being hit by injuries ahead of their Europa Conference League campaign.

The Lakesiders face Estonian side Paide Linnameeskond in the first qualifying round, with the home leg on Thursday, 11 July.

Caton reported a number of injuries following Bala’s friendly defeat at Colwyn Bay on Friday.

“We’ve had some serious injuries so we’re going to be down to the bare bones,” Caton told BBC Sport Wales.

“We’ve had four bad injuries – two lads might be ok and two lads will definitely miss.

“We’re going to see if we can get numbers in to cover the injuries.

“The squad that we’ve got isn’t big and it’s getting to the closing date of signing players so it’s going to all hands on the pump to try and get lads in.

“It’s hard because a lot of the English-based lads don’t want to speak to anybody because they’re on holiday as they don’t finish until the middle of May.

“It’s really difficult but it’s always been like that and it’s really bad luck with the injuries after being quite happy with the squad going into the European games before tonight.

“These things happen and we’ve got to bounce back and regroup.”

Bala play the home leg of their Europa Conference League tie at New Saints’ Park Hall on Thursday with the second leg in Estonia a week later.

Opponents Paide are currently halfway through their domestic season and are fourth in their league.

“The team that we play has signed heavily in the last few days and it’s going to be difficult to compete with them,” Caton added.

Bala, who qualified for the Europa Conference League after finishing third in last season’s Cymru Premier, will be appearing in European competition for the ninth time.

Their first ever European tie was in 2013 when they faced another Estonian side, Levadia Tallinn, in the Europa League, narrowly losing 3-2 on aggregate.

“It was obviously new to us as a club at the time,” Caton said.

“There wasn’t a lot in it - we won the first leg and we could have won the second leg.

“We hit the crossbar in the last few minutes and it was an end-to-end game.”