Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Roverscan beconfident foropener
Brian Reid says his Albion Rovers side can take confidence from their Premier Sports Cup group stage campaign as they head to big-spending Stenhousemuir for their League Two opener on Saturday.
Stephen Swift’s side have spent big this summer bringing in players like ex-st Johnstone midfielder Craig Bryson, while Reid looks to the loans market to bolster his squad.
But he says it’s important to get off to as good a start as the Coatbridge club can.
He said:“it will be a tough start. Stenny have added quite significantly into their squad and have spent a bit of money.
“A lot of people maybe fancy them to be up there challenging, but we have to go up there and try to get the result.
“That’s going to be tough, every game is tough in League Two, but you’ve got to approach it in the right manner, play it in the right way.
“I think we’ve got a decent squad now, so we just need to make sure we go and show that.
“You always want to start the season well. It’s just something you want to do, and that’s our aim.
“We want to try and get a good start to the season and kick on from there, which builds confidence as well.”
A 3-2 home defeat to Livingston kicked off the cup campaign, followed by a 2-1 midweek defeat at home to Championship side Cove Rangers.
Rovers then returned from Kelty Hearts with a brilliant 2-0 win, but lost 4-0 at Championship Inverness to close the campaign on July 19.
Reid says that hectic schedule of four games in 11 days meant he gave most of his first-team squad the weekend off, as they prepare to head to Ochilview.
He added:“we had four really tough games, back-to-back.
“We were unlucky with the draw and had Saturday-tuesday, Saturdaytuesday with no break in-between, so that was four games in 11 days.
“The players coped quite well with it, I thought fitness levels were good.
“I gave the boys the weekend off, with a bounce game for some of the reserves, a couple of players who needed game-time and a couple of trialists.
“We’ve got to take confidence from the League Cup campaign. We were in a really tough group with no teams in our league, but I thought we held our own for the most part of it.
“We need to take that into our league campaign and show that it wasn’t just a pre-season momentum, and that we can do it consistently.”
Kick-off at Ochilview is 3pm.