Ayr United are sweating on the fitness of Arsenal loanee Alex Kirk after he provided an assist before being stretchered off on Saturday.

One of Arsenal’s lesser talked about loan spells this season is that of Alex Kirk to Ayr United in the Scottish Championship, but the defender has quietly been performing very well.

Kirk often earns the praise of supporters for his performances, and he was on a run of eight consecutive league starts after he made the United lineup on Saturday against Inverness.

Once again, Kirk put in a good performance, setting up a goal with a header to give his team the lead with just eight minutes to play.

But the game had a couple of sickening late twists. First, Inverness equalised in the 87th minute. Then, Kirk was stretchered off the field in injury time.

Ayr United reporter Stuart Wilson reports that there will now be a nervous wait on Kirk’s injury status, adding that it’s an ankle problem.

Kirk’s loan club are hopeful the injury isn’t as bad as it first appeared, but they’ll know more in the coming days.

In the opening four and a half months of the campaign, Kirk has made 14 appearances, spending 1,170 minutes on the pitch.

The centre-back has two goals and two assists in that time, all of which came in the last six games, so he was in excellent form before this injury, helping his team to the top of the Scottish Championship.

The one big positive is that Ayr United only have one league fixture between now and December 17th. If there’s good news on Kirk’s ankle injury, he may not miss much.