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Gylfi Sigurdsson won’t be involved for Valur against St Mirren, manager Arnar Gretarsson has confirmed.
The Icelandic side will not have the former Premier League playmaker’s talents to call upon in the Conference League contest after an injury picked up at the weekend.
Sigurdsson had featured for Valur for the entire 90 minutes in the 4-1 loss to Reykjavik rivals Fram on Sunday but hasn’t travelled to Paisley with his team-mates for the crucial European second leg.
"Gylfi has a back injury,” said Gretarsson of Sigurdsson’s absence. “If for example, we had two games left of the season, I think he would play.
"But we still want to try and finish in the first position in the league. We are running behind the current champions.
"Playing this game would maybe risk him being out for another three weeks.
"I don't want him playing not at full capacity. Playing someone at 90 percent, especially because of his status, the St Mirren players would always be more aggressive on him. They'd be on top of him.
"So he would need to be at 100 percent. That's the way it is. We've played without him, we'd obviously love to have him, but that's the case."
Valur will also be without Aaron Johannsson who was sent off in the first leg, with captain Holmar Orn Eyjolfsson also ruled out of the tie through injury having been listed on the bench in Iceland.
Gretarsson added: “Also, Aron Johannsson who came on in the first, it was his first game for six weeks and he got the red card in ten minutes. He's also a big personality.
"Holmar Orn Eyjolfsson, who is normally our team captain, he's been out for some time too and these are three key guys.
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"Obviously, any team missing those key players, it's going to be difficult.
"But fortunately, we have quite a strong squad.
"Hopefully we can still put out a good team and manager to perform."
Gretarsson knows history is not on his side in Paisley but is hoping to buck the trend of Scottish clubs having triumphed over Icelandic sides in recent history.
He said: "I am sure St Mirren are looking at the game and thinking we should progress, I am sure they are saying we have to go through, we are playing at home with almost 8,000 fans behind us and we are playing against Icelandic team.
"If you look at the history and Iceland v Scotland, in 18 games, 16 teams Scottish teams have progressed.
"So history is with St Mirren but hopefully we can make the statistic a little bit better for Iceland tomorrow."
For Tryggvi Hrafn Haraldsson, the trip to Paisley is somewhat of a homecoming having live in Scotland while his dad Haraldur Ingolfsson played for Aberdeen in 1997.
“The last time I was in Scotland was in 1997 when I was one,” he explained. “lived here the first year of my life when my dad was playing for Aberdeen. But I don’t remember it all!
“I moved here when I was just a few weeks old.”
And Haraldsson, 27, is confident he won’t be overawed by his surroundings at the sold-out SMiSA Stadium after staring for Iceland against Mexico in his international debut.
“I had only played in front of crowds of 2000 until I made my debut for the national team in the USA against Mexico in front of 30,000,” he explains. “So this game won’t be too shocking for me.
“I feel like we can go through. The first game was very tight. Both teams had a lot of chances so I think it will be more of the same. A 50:50 game.”
