Peterhead’s hopes of having last season’s top goalscorer, Russell McLean, available during the first quarter of the season have taken a knock after the 24-year old’s recovery from knee surgery took a slight setback. ‘Rusty’ who found the net 15 times in the Blue Toon’s last campaign, despite his involvement ending in early April, had a procedure carried out in July and there were hopes he would be available before the first run of nine league games was over. Balmoor manager Jim McInally said: “Thankfully it is not a major issue but Russell’s comeback will be delayed until October or November. We had hoped that it would be September however that is unlikely now and also as he will not have played for almost six months then there will be an element of a pre-season training programme being required as well.”
