East Fife boss Gary Naysmith is looking for his side to climb back into promotion contention after Tuesday night’s important win over title-chasing Albion Rovers.
Defeat at Cliftonhill would have left the Fifers deep in the mire in League Two but, as it turned out, a hard-fought 3-2 win has given Naysmith’s team a whole different outlook as they rose to sixth in the table.
Ahead of their trip to Montrose tomorrow, the Bayview boss knows how important their midweek success could be in the grand scheme of things with catching fourth-placed Annan now the key objective.
“I didn’t want to put too much pressure on them before the game but I’m not stupid we were second bottom going into the game through no fault of our own, just with games being cancelled, so it was a big game for us,” he admitted.
“If we lost it then that would be one of our games in hand gone.
“But now we’ve won it we’re starting to look up the way.
“We’re up to sixth and if we win our two games in hand I think we go up to fourth.
“Beating Albion Rovers is a small step, and we’ve been making small steps, which is great.
“In the last three games we’ve played in this calendar year we’ve got five points, and we’ve got those from the top three teams in the league.
“That’s pleasing but that hasn’t been our problem this season.
“Our problem has been against the teams everybody else expects us to beat, so we now need to go and do the best we can against the teams that are around us.”
Naysmith has got some healthy competition for places in his squad now and he hopes that will breed further success in the coming weeks with a hectic schedule coming up.
“What we want now is a situation where the team’s playing well and it’s up to the guys playing every week to prove that they want to keep the jersey,” he continued.
“It’s not a threat but I’ve said to the players that if they go out of the team they might struggle to get back in.
“We’ve got a really good squad of 18 players now who will expect to play every week, so if they don’t perform there will be someone determined to take their place.
“I think we did good business in January with three or four out and three or four in, and we’ve managed to save some money on wages which is very important to the club as well.
“I think we’ve got a stronger squad than when we started January and we now need to go on a run and get some wins together.”
Midfielder Allan Walker will miss tomorrow’s trip to Links Park through suspension.