Arbroath maintained their flawless away record last night as a victory over Annan Athletic saw them march eight points clear at the top of League 2.
A first-half goal from on-loan Dundee teenager Dylan Carreiro did the damage for the rampant Gayfield side as they made it eight wins from nine games in the league so far.
Boss Allan Moore said: “Dylan provided a wee bit of brilliance for us. Three starts and three goals for us you can’t ask for any more than that.
“He’s a really creative player and he’s not the captain of Canada Under-20s for nothing.
“He was helped along by a lot of the other boys though. We had to dig in because Annan bombarded us in the second half. It was a great win I’d take 1-0 at Annan any day.”
The only goal came from the first real opening of the match after 11 minutes when Carreiro sidestepped his man and pinged in a powerful low shot from 20 yards out.
Carreiro almost doubled the visitors’ lead in 22 minutes but his blast from just outside the box came back off the underside of the crossbar. Arbroath threatened again from a rapid counter-attack in the 53rd minute, but Bobby Linn prodded his effort just past the post after bursting into the box.
Red Lichties goalkeeper David Crawford had to pull off a defiant triple-save in the 56th minute to twice keep out Stuart McColm before denying Steven Black all in the one goalmouth scramble.
At the other end, Murray burst down the right channel and drilled a low angled shot just past the far post from 15 yards out.
Annan striker David Hopkirk tried to haul his side level in 69 minutes but his low shot from the edge of the box was clutched by Crawford.
Two minutes later, McColm burst on to a through ball in the box but rasped his powerful angled strike over the bar.
Annan’s Peter Weatherson headed against the bar with two minutes left as the visitors held on.