Arbroath boss Allan Moore knows just how important a win over title rivals Queen’s Park could be as the promotion race begins to heat up.
The league leaders blew the chance to build up a commanding lead at the top of the table in November when they faced the Spiders and Albion Rovers in successive weeks, but the Lichties still head to Hampden today four points clear going into the second half of the season.
Moore reckons the League Two title race is now a three-horse race and, with that in mind, he is looking for his charges to potentially take one of the contenders out of the equation with victory this afternoon.
“I think it is between us three, I can’t see any of the rest of the teams coming out of the pack, and obviously this game on Saturday is a massive game for us because if we win it we can go nine points clear of them,” he explained.
“That is a big turnaround, because I think we’ve only lost three or four games this season.
“That would mean we would have to lose three or four and Queen’s Park would have to win three or four for them to overtake us, so it would be a big turnaround.
“But Albion Rovers are biting away at us as well and we know it’s going to be very difficult between now and the end of the season.
“If we can get a wee result on Saturday then it will open up a bit of a gap, but we were in this situation the last time when we played them and Albion Rovers.
“We could have opened up a big gap back then but we got dragged back into it because we lost those two games.
“So we’ve got to make sure we don’t disappoint on Saturday.
“It’ll be good to get back to Hampden because that should give the boys a wee lift in itself.”
The enforced break due to the postponement of last weekend’s game against Albion Rovers helped some of Moore’s players recover from injury, with Ricky Little and Scott McBride expected to be available.
Kevin Nicoll is still out, but on loan Falkirk centre half Ryan McGeever is likely to make his first start since returning to the Lichties.
“We haven’t had many injuries all season and I think we’ve been lucky in that respect because we’ve got a small squad,” Moore added.
“We’ve only got a squad of maybe 16 players and unfortunately over the last couple of weeks the injuries have hit.
“Especially the Montrose game, we ended up getting one broken nose, one boy did his groin and one boy did his foot in.
“So that has put a bit of pressure on our first team playing squad.
“Everyone will drop points between now and the end of the season but winning this game would be great.”