Alloa Athletic are the visitors to Balmoor on Saturday as we return to league action with a 3pm KO.
March 2023 was the last time the two sides met as Alloa ran out 2-0 winners in a season that saw the Blue Toon relegated back to the bottom league.
Andy Graham’s side have had a good start to the league campaign and currently sit in third place in the table albeit with a game in hand over the two teams above them.
Peterhead dropped to eighth after a 3-1 loss to Stenhousemuir at Ochilview last weekend so will be fired to up to keep the home form momentum going as they are currently unbeaten at Balmoor this season.
From Ryan Strachan: “Back to league action after a pretty busy week on the road to Stenhousemuir and in the cup midweek against another strong opposition. Last weekend we performed admirably for 50 minutes then fell off a cliff and lost all composure, during the week the first half we continued that below par performance but got back to more like ourselves second half albeit there is still a lot more to come and we expect better. Our options recently have been quite limited but we freshened things up during the week with a session away from the grass to allow mind and bodies to recover and not think about football, travel or tactics. Hopefully we see the benefits from that with a reinvigorated performance.
It’s been a while since we faced an Alloa team but I believe they were Jordon and I’s first game as interim managers over 3 seasons ago. We know Alloa will be such a difficult test, they’ve been pushing top 4 for a number of years now in L1 and have a solid core of players established in this league and higher. Alloa know how to put points on the board and if there was a criticism of our team up to now it’s that we’ve played well in large periods of the bulk of our games but failed to capitalise with the points we feel our play has deserved at times. Our home form till now has been strong and until we find a formula away from home it must continue to hold us in good stead. We feel we’re only a player or two returning, one really good result or a clean sheet away from getting back to putting a run together. It’s fine margins and this level is unforgiving.
Team news is slightly more positive, some of the players with niggles rested during the week will return and be available. Adam Carnwath won’t be available and initial diagnosis has him out for a few weeks, hopefully that’s the case. Cieran Dunne and Pete continue to recover at their own speeds. Danny Strachan, Craig McGuffie, David Wilson and Cammy Smith are all welcomed back into the squad”.
