Wee Arbroath to be pushing a club like Kilmarnock, with the huge budget they’ve got, all the way in the Championship title race is an incredible story.
For the second last game of the season, the eyes of Scottish football will be on Rugby Park.
And we’ll be taking a travelling support west that would have been unthinkable at the start of the season.
Killie were huge favourites to go straight back up to the Premiership and we were huge favourites to go down.
To put it into perspective, a few of our players will be doing half a shift at their main job on the day of the game before getting their tracksuit on and their sleeves rolled up to give their all for Arbroath.
This match and everything that goes with it is more than we could have asked for.
We’re already guaranteed to finish second.
To be going into it on the back of scoring five goals – the most we’ve got in one game all season – is ideal.
We’re also five unbeaten, so our form is there.
A message from Bobby pic.twitter.com/TUMbMczaZd
— Arbroath FC (@ArbroathFC) April 21, 2022
Our record against Killie is good and we’ve lost the least amount of games in the league.
This isn’t some kind of fluke.
We’ll give it everything we’ve got.
It’s different to the Deefiant season at Dundee for obvious reasons.
But that’s the only thing I can really compare it to in terms of the togetherness of an underdog group of people, all pulling in the same direction.
Whatever happens on Friday night, Arbroath’s season will be alive for at least another week.
Every goalkeeper watching Zack Steffen get robbed by Sadio Mane trying to play his way out from the back in Man City’s FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool will have got a shiver up the spine.
It won’t have been in front of as big a worldwide audience as Saturday’s but we’ve all been there in some form.
An excellent header from Ibrahima Konate gives #LFC the lead at Wembley!
That's three in three games for the centre-back… #MCILIV
And now it's 2-0! Steffen lingers on the ball and Mane slides in… #EmiratesFACup
📹 @BBCMOTD pic.twitter.com/9GfcN6I2Ko
— The Athletic UK (@TheAthleticUK) April 16, 2022
The same thing nearly happened to Ederson the week before and, even though Pep Guardiola will know that Steffen is nowhere near his number one’s quality, he wouldn’t have had a go at the American for not just booting the ball up or out of the park.
The philosophy at City, Liverpool and other big clubs is to use the keeper as an extra playmaker.
Alisson Becker did a chop in his own box to get past Bruno Fernandes in the midweek game at Anfield!
The life of an elite goalkeeper has changed and it will never go back to the way it used to be.
It’s been a long wait since the comeback against Dundee United and Mark will know that, with this match being so important, there are times when you need to lighten the mood a bit.
I’ve been working with Dick Campbell long enough now to know that the man-management side of things is so important.
Mark’s job is to get his players arriving at kick-off in the best possible frame of mind.
And if Dundee win on Saturday, there will be a few managers turning the heating off and cutting back on their dinner!
