DENIZ MEHMET has admitted that the loss of so many key players to injury can be "mentally draining" but that the tight-knit Pars squad need to "weather the storm" and come through it.

The Dunfermline goalkeeper has said that having to cope with the absence of a number of team-mates in recent weeks has been a "different challenge" but that they are giving everything for the cause.

Athletic go into this weekend's match with Airdrieonians on a run of five games without a victory, and have dropped to sixth in the Championship table, following a disappointing defeat at Queen's Park on Friday night.

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"It's definitely been tough. It's tough on the boys," Mehmet told Press Sport.

"Touching on Friday night there, you see boys playing out of position, and playing with niggles and injuries. Should they be playing? If we had a full team, would they be playing? Probably not. They'd probably be getting rested and getting the time they need to get fully fit and get better again.

"They've always given everything they can. To the outside, people don't see the pain barriers the boys are pushing through, what they're trying to do, and how they're trying to help out everyone and everything they can.

"It makes it difficult and you're up against it, so-to-speak, already before a ball's even kicked. You're asking boys to play in positions that they naturally wouldn't play, so you're asking them to look at a game in a completely different perspective, as they normally would, and do things that they wouldn't normally do on a match day. The effort they always give is second to none.

"It's not just the physical aspect of the period that we've just had there, and everything that's going on with it, it's the mental side of it.

"It can be quite mentally draining to be honest, when you're trying to take on information that you wouldn't normally take on, and you're trying to adapt that into your game overnight. Or, over the next couple of days to prepare - not myself obviously, but for the other boys - where they're going to be playing, trying to see the game from a different perspective, and now play a completely different role that they're not used to, or not played at all.

"Unfortunately, that's the cards we've been dealt. It's just a matter of trying to weather the storm a little bit, and just knuckle down, be together, be tight as a unit, as a team, just try and get through it as best as we can, and wait for everyone to get back again."

When asked if the spate of injuries impacting the team had brought the squad closer together, Mehmet replied: "To be honest, I don't know how much closer we can get, really - it is a very good group that we have. The changing room we have is good, everyone gets on really well.

"Obviously, you have your arguments on the pitch, on the training pitch, whatever may happen, just with demands you have of each other. You have that everywhere, all over the world, in football. That's something that's never going to change. It's not having a falling out; that's just the pressures of football and the demands of the game that you put on each other, and you know that each other give.

"I think it's just a different challenge. Last year, we were together and quite a tight changing room with the successes that we had, and now it's swayed the other way, and it's a different type of battle that we've got now.

"It's time to roll our sleeves up so-to-speak, do the best we can, grit our teeth, get through it, and just wait. The adage is just playing the waiting game, waiting for boys, counting the days down for the boys that are injured to get fit, and they're all working hard to get back as quick as they can.

"Unfortunately, time's a healer. It's not that they're not working hard enough, so they're not getting back in time. These things take time, unfortunately.

"It's tough to see and you're looking it and thinking when is it going to go our way?

"You're getting concussions; Fish (Sam Fisher) had a concussion against Raith, which sets him back further once more, because that's his second one. People like Kane - he's had no luck at all this year. He finally gets fit and blocks a shot, then gets injured again, and then against Arbroath, he has a start, falls awkwardly, dislocates his shoulder - it's just freak injuries that are happening.

"We can only hope and pray that these times are going to pass and we're going to stop getting these ridiculous injuries that are happening."