There’s no hiding from it.
Friday night’s 6-0 loss to Dundee United was a massively sore one for Arbroath.
But the thing for me is it’s already been consigned to the bin.
We’re at home to Partick Thistle on Saturday and that’s what it’s all about.
We’ve been on good form, we’ve been scoring goals, we’ve been winning games.
Yes, we got completely turned over by United and the players were hurting after that, but that just gives them the opportunity to show a reaction – and that’s what we’re all looking for.
Of course, there are lessons we can take from Tannadice.
From an Arbroath perspective, the big one is that, as good as United were, we were just as poor. That was the case when we played them at Gayfield on the opening day of the season – and the exact same thing happened again.
At 2-0 we had a couple of half-chances, then United got their third just before half-time and that killed us. It was a long slog after that. But we take our medicine. That’s how we work.
Our season won’t be defined by results against Dundee United, though they haven’t helped the goals against column so far.
My cup’s always half-full though. You can’t keep taking on board negatives because they end up dragging you down.
You can’t change a result and there’s no point feeling sorry for ourselves. We just have to get the sleeves rolled up because we’ve done well at home recently.
When Partick turn up on Saturday, they’ll be doing it off the back of a midweek game too, so you never know, that could help the wee part-time team we are!
At the end of the day, you just can’t take anything away from Dundee United and how they’re going about things this season.
They’ve got quality all over the pitch, from the goalie Jack Walton right through to Louis Moult up top.
You have to give huge credit to Jim Goodwin there. He’s built a really good squad.
Now, for Arbroath, it’s all about looking forward.
Arbroath weren’t the only side to take a sore one last weekend.
Elgin City were on the wrong end of a Scottish Cup shock when they lost 6-0 to Perth’s Jeanfield Swifts.
Elgin manager Barry Smith’s obviously a former Dundee team-mate of mine – and a good friend.
That’s why I’m sure there won’t be any doom and gloom at Borough Briggs; because the one thing about Barry is, hardship only makes him more determined.
That said, I’m not surprised Jeanfield showed real quality.
Arbroath train through in Perth and we played against them in a bounce game not too long ago, when we were trying to get minutes into a few boys’ legs.
We came away from that game knowing they had plenty about them, I can tell you.
It just goes to show that, even at Swifts’ level, there are teams going about their business in a really professional way, trying to work their way up the pyramid.
In the one or two tiers immediately below the SPFL, there’s some quality there.
With Clyde next up, it’ll be fascinating to see how far Jeanfield can go this year.
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