SOUTHEND United manager Phil Brown was left ruing Checkatrade Trophy rules after seeing three players added to his injury list.

Defenders John White and Anton Ferdinand both picked up injuries during Tuesday night’s 2-1 defeat at Gillingham along with winger winger Stephen McLaughlin.

And Brown was frustrated the competition’s guidelines did not allow him to make more changes to his starting line-up at the Priestfield Stadium.

“A lot of the time I will be questioned by people in the club and probably the supporters as well about team selection but this is an unbelievable example of why you shouldn’t play senior pros in games like this,” said Brown.

“It should be an under 23 game because the workload on our small squad is too much and we’ve ended up with Anton Ferdinand, John White and Stephen McLaughlin all getting injured so it’s been a horrible night at the office.”

White picked up a groin problem while Ferdinand and McLaughlin both suffered hamstring injuries.

But Brown does not yet know how serious the setbacks are.

“Anton is quite adamant it’s not that bad but I’ll see how he is Thursday,” said the Blues boss.

“John has tweaked his groin but hopefully he’s come off in time to stop it getting too serious.

“But Macca’s hamstring tightened up so we’ll have to see how that is.”

However, it is defensively where the Shrimpers have the biggest concerns with Rob Kiernan (knee), Michael Turner (hamstring) and Ben Coker (broken leg) all currently unavailable along with Jason Demetriou who is on international duty with Cyprus.

And Brown refused to rule out bringing in another defender on loan.

“It’s either that or we’ll use the kids,” said the Shrimpers chief.

“We have a decision to make before the window closes now.”

Ryan Leonard and Harry Kyprianou ended Tuesday night’s game at the heart of the back four for Blues.

But it was the performance of teenager Elvis Bwomono which most pleased Brown.

“The positives were the three debuts and no more so than Elvis,” said Brown.

“He stepped up to the plate with regards to playing at right-back again on Saturday.

“But overall we weren’t quite there mentality wise which is what I also said on Saturday.

“Putting the ball in the back of the net seems to be a problem for us and so does keeping clean sheets.

“You can go on about all the stats but it bores the living daylights out of people.

“We had more shots and more crosses but it doesn’t mean anything if you’re not putting the ball in the back of the net.”