If the injury crisis at Essendon wasn’t already at nuclear levels, it is now ... with scans revealing that young midfielder Elijah Tsatas has suffered a hamstring strain.

With 16 players unavailable, the Bombers have made six changes to the team that will face Greater Western Sydney on Thursday night, recalling Archie Perkins, Jade Gresham, Matt Guelfi, young ruck Vigo Visentini, and out-of-favour veteran Dylan Shiel.

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Mid-season draftee Liam McMahon will also make his debut for the club.

The Tsatas issue adds to the Bombers’ injury-cursed season.

They lost star playmaker Nic Martin (knee) and midfielder Will Setterfield (foot) for the season in Saturday night’s ugly loss against Richmond.

Rising forward Nate Caddy and midfielder Ben Hobbs were also injured, while veteran ruck Todd Goldstein will also miss Thursday’s match (but he is being rested).

But it is the soft-tissue issues that are particularly alarming for the club.

Kyle Langford (quad x2, hamstring), Jye Caldwell (hamstring), Darcy Parish (calf x2), Mason Redman (calf, hamstring), Zach Reid (hamstring x2), Jordan Ridley (hamstring), Archie Perkins (quad), Jade Gresham (adductor), Matt Guelfi (hamstring), Saad El-Hawli (hamstring), Nik Cox (calf), and Tsatas (hamstring) make up a staggering list of soft-tissue injuries throughout the year.

Essendon will equal the most debutants in a season in the AFL era — 13 — when McMahon plays against the Giants.

And the club has now said they will allocate extra resources to go about fixing their under-fire strength and conditioning program.

Coach Brad Scott was almost lost for words when detailing the injury crisis after the Richmond game, but was more upbeat a day out from facing the Giants.

“A five-day break, there’s no time to be getting distracted from what I need to do,” Scott said on Wednesday.

“I do have the utmost confidence in the people who are looking at our program. There’s no doubt we will relocate resources to that (medical conditioning) space.

“We know better than anyone this year how important it is to get your players fit and available.

“It’s hard not to be really frustrated, almost exasperated, just devastating seeing players like Nic Martin and Will Setterfield suffer really serious injuries.

“It’s been a perfect storm of a whole range of different injuries all coming together at once.

“There are moments, don’t get me wrong, where we all - including me - feel sorry for ourselves, but we’ve got to bounce out of that really quickly.”

Martin became the fourth Bomber to injure their ACL this season, joining Nick Bryan, Lewis Hayes and Tom Edwards.

Sam Draper will also be sidelined for up to 12 months after rupturing his achilles in April.

Essendon will have 11 first-choice players sidelined against GWS - Martin, Setterfield, Caddy, Hobbs, Draper, Darcy Parish, Jye Caldwell, Kyle Langford, Ben McKay, Harry Jones and Zach Reid.

The Bombers will be spared GWS at their best, with Coleman medallist Jesse Hogan and star midfielder Josh Kelly to miss the trip to Melbourne.

But GWS veteran Stephen Coniglio is set to make his long-awaited AFL return, having overcome a glute complaint stemming from a nerve issue suffered earlier this season.

Essendon will be facing up to former star Jake Stringer in Giants colours for the first time.

Stringer booted 207 goals in 123 games for the Bombers before seeking a move to GWS last off-season.

After a frustrating start to his time in western Sydney, the 31-year-old hit some serious form against Geelong last week with four goals.

“I played seven or eight years with some of those guys that have gone down with long-term injuries. My heart goes out to them,” Stringer said of Essendon’s injury crisis.“We won’t be going out Thursday night taking them lightly.

“We’ll be going out there thinking they’re full-strength and getting after it.’‘

- With AAP