Motherwell defender Jake Carroll faces ‘months’ on the sidelines after a freak training injury left him watching on crutches as his side conceded a dramatic last-gasp goal to St Johnstone.

Stephen O’Donnell was deployed at left-back as the Steelmen grabbed a 91st minute equaliser, only to be hit with a Stevie May sucker punch at the other end.

And interim boss Steven Hammell admitted after the match he or a new manager will be without one of Well’s key men with Carroll ruled out for the foreseeable future.

He said: “Unfortunately he got a bad injury in training yesterday. It was really innocuous, there was nobody within five or six yards of him and unfortunately it looks like a bad one for Jake, which is a massive blow for us because he was a big part of what we wanted to do.

“He’s shown up really, really well since we took over, I know it’s been a short space of time but he gives us good balance and good quality as well.

“He was missed today, and like I said before it was one of many hurdles we had to deal with during the week.

“I’m not sure exactly (what the injury is) but it is a serious one. We’ve not had an official diagnosis of it but it’s going to be months.”