Cove Rangers will make the trip to Balmoor on Saturday as the visitors take on Peterhead in the William Hill League One, with kick-off scheduled for 3pm.
This will be the third meeting between the sides this season, with the Blue Toon holding the upper hand so far. Peterhead claimed a convincing 3–1 victory in the previous clash at Balmoor Stadium before edging out a 2–1 win away at Cove earlier in the campaign.
Paul Hartley’s side currently sit ninth in the league table and have experienced mixed form in recent weeks. However, Cove Rangers arrive in the north-east buoyed by a confidence-boosting victory over Kelty Hearts last weekend.
Peterhead, meanwhile, will be targeting a third consecutive win as they look to maintain momentum and keep themselves firmly in the hunt for a play-off place. With recent history favouring the hosts and both teams needing the points for different reasons, Saturday’s encounter promises to be a competitive and entertaining affair.
From Ryan Strachan: “Merry Christmas to the Peterhead family, we hope you all had a lovely day and are ready to get behind the team for Saturdays match versus Cove.
We’ve had a really good week, interrupted from routine and travel but still the players have earned that recently. We’ve only trained locally and the players have enjoyed the festive period sitting on an impressive performance last week. I thought last week we limited a team that always create chances to almost nothing. As a unit we stood up admirably and possessed our own threat for large periods. I thought second half we were really comfortable and it would’ve been easy to get deeper and deeper as the game went on but that never really materialised.
Tomorrow we face a team we know all to well. Cove’s form recently is much improved and we got to watch them last week v Patrick where we both thought they were very good. Played good football, had a lot of fluidity middle to front and defended well against a strong championship team. We’ve done well in our return to league One specifically against Cove but we can’t sit on that. We must continue to drive standards and improve the performances and results will follow.
Team news, we haven’t had a good week on this front –
it’s confirmed Pete will now miss a lengthy period due to probable grade 3 MCL (knee) which is so unfortunate for him with all the grea work he’s done and 2 outings against Ayr and Kelty where he showed his levels. Cammy Smith another big blow will miss a few weeks with hamstring strain, these injuries can’t be rushed or you could risk doubling the time off the field. Adam Carnwath is progressing and he should train this week, Cieran Dunne is also in his last week with a boot on and can up the intensity of his rehabilitation program. Andy McCarthy is suspended. Flynn Duffy and Josh Kerr are welcome additions back into the squad for contention. We’ve been hampered the whole season but shows great team morale that we are where we are without several high profile players. The team really has found solutions to the problems more often than not.
Merry Christmas all”.
