Albion Rovers v Forfar Athletic – match preview

The ‘Loons’ get back into cinch league 2 action with a visit to Coatbridge on Saturday first to face Albion Rovers who are managed by the experienced Brian Reid who has hardly been out of the senior game since signing as a player for Morton back in 1988.

Forfar go into the game sitting deservedly in second place in the table at present five points ahead of Stirling Albion and Edinburgh City.   City will of course be in action once again on Friday night this weekend at home to Annan so may cut that deficit prior to the Athies going into ‘combat’ at 3p.m.on the Saturday afternoon.

Gary Irvine and his players though have an opportunity on Saturday to put some pressure on leaders Kelty who will be in cup tie replay action at Links Park, their scheduled league visit to Elgin now arranged for Tuesday evening of next week.

Having won five and drawn two of their last eight league games, the Station Park squad will head to North Lanarkshire in confident mood, but they too will be aware that Cliftonhill especially in winter time is never an easy place to pick up the points.

Andy Munro will return to the match day squad having sat out the cup tie last week through suspension, while word is awaited from Aberdeen on the fitness of Mark Gallagher who also had to miss the Gayfield fixture.

However Craig Thomson is  major doubt following his early exit through injury at Gayfield, while a few other players were nursing knocks at the beginning of the week.     Gary should hopefully have nevertheless a near full squad at his disposal.

Incidentally Darren Whyte continues to make great progress in attaining full fitness, while unfortunately Michael Travis did not get the game time he had hoped for last weekend after going on loan to Berwick, the ‘wee’ Rangers East of Scotland cup tie falling foul of the weather.

Albion Rovers currently sit seventh in the table, nine points adrift of the Athies.

They lost out to Ayr in the cup last week, 2-1 the final score, this after Maxwell Wright had given them a 46^th minute lead.

In their last league game they shared the spoils at Annan, while they picked up three points in their last home encounter defeating Stirling Albion by the only goal of the game scored by Kyle Doherty who had a spell on trial with Queens Park Rangers recently.

When the sides met at Station Park on the last Saturday in September, the home side recorded a relatively comfortable 3-1 success, the Forfar marksmen on the day, Stefan McCluskey, Scott Shepherd and Matty Aitken.

As ever a hard fought contest will be in  store for Ross Meechan and his colleagues in the west as we enter the final month of the year and of course by the time Boxing Day comes, half the thirty six league fixtures all going well will have been completed.

Saturday’s referee is Grant Irvine who was last in charge of a ‘Loons’ fixture in the Betfred Cup at Dens Park back in late July.

Admission prices on Saturday are £13 for adults, £7 concessions.

This weekend’s other fixtures in the cinch league 2 are as follows;-

Friday – Edinburgh City v Annan Athletic

Saturday – Cowdenbeath v Stirling Albion, Stenhousemuir v Stranraer