Injury hit Arbroath will look to put a turbulent week, that included the sacking of manager Allan Moore, behind them and finally get over the finishing line for a play-off place by defeating visitors Queen’s Park today.
Under the former Stirling Albion and Morton boss Arbroath had sprinted out of the League Two starting blocks, however 2015 saw Albion Rovers and the Hampden side overtake the Red Lichties.
And as results failed to pick up, he was sacked on Sunday.
Moore’s assistant Todd Lumsden has been placed in interim charge as the hunt for a new boss continues.
Lumsden said: “Training was a bit subdued as you can imagine however the players and I had a good conversation about moving forward.
“We have to move on, it is as simple as that, and this game and the two others that we have left are all about getting into the play-offs.
“That is the target that we have to hit now and one win should do it.”
The former Albion Rovers boss added: “Queen’s Park are in good form and they also still have an outside chance of winning the league so we will need to play well to get the win that we need.”
Lumsden’s resources will be stretched as Jordon Lowdon and Simon Murray look set to miss out due to knocks picked up at Elgin, and they will join the already injured Liam Gordon, Adam Hunter, Ryan McGeever, Jonny Lindsay, Kieran Stewart, Dylan Carreiro and Paul McManus.
The stand-in boss said: “We are very short of bodies so I will need to do a bit of juggling but hopefully we can get a performance out of the boys.”
Queen’s who trail Albion Rovers by five points need just a draw to be sure of second place.
* Arbroath chairman John Christison will sift through the applications for the manager’s job this weekend, and take things on from there next week.