CHRIS ERSKINE’S fourth spell at Partick Thistle looks set to end in further heartbreak after the 34-year-old playmaker picked up a hamstring injury in Tuesday night’s 2-2 draw with Forfar Athletic.

The midfielder, who last month joined on loan from East Kilbride with the West of Scotland Football League placed into cold storage, returned to Firhill for a fourth stint and to play his part in the Jags’ promotion-chasing campaign.

But Thistle boss Ian McCall fears that just like during his third spell in Maryhill, when then manager Gary Caldwell unceremoniously booted Erskine out the back door, this latest sojourn with the League One club could end painfully for the fans’ favourite.

Erskine came off the bench against Forfar but didn’t last 10 minutes before hobbling off clutching his hamstring – with McCall revealing that the injury may be more serious than it initially appeared.

“Chris Erskine was cup-tied anyway,” McCall said ahead of this weekend’s Scottish Cup fixture with Dundee United. “He’s getting a scan tomorrow morning and unfortunately it looks like a bad one.

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“He was looking really sharp when he came on the other night. If he had stayed on the pitch, I felt we may have had a good chance of winning the game.

“But our physio thinks it’s a really bad hamstring injury, which would mean not just Chris’ season being over, but could be quite long-term. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for him because he’s done a lot for this club.

“We’ll just need to wait on the results of the scan. If the physio’s diagnosis is right it could be six or eight months. It’s one of these really bad hamstring injuries, it’s not just a tear. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I hope that the scan comes back and it’s just a grade one tear.

“It’s strange days because when you say someone’s season is finished now it means four weeks – before, it was a lot longer than that. It was hard for him because he came back really looking forward to being able to see cheerio properly to Partick Thistle but we’ll just have to wait and see what the scan says.”