Gable Endies squad stronger than ever, claims loyal Watson

ANNAN 0 MONTROSE 1

Long-serving Paul Watson reckons this is one of the best Montrose sides he’s been part of after he helped them tighten their early grip on second place in League Two.

The 31-year-old midfielder headed the only goal at Galabank just before the break as the Gable Endies maintained their unbeaten start on the back of last season’s surge to the play-offs under Stewart Petrie.

Watson, who has just kicked off his seventh season at Links Park, said: “This is one of the strongest Montrose teams since I’ve been here. We’ve got depth everywhere. Bringing players like Sean Dillon in really adds to your squad.

“The squad’s in a good place and we’re going well. We’re still unbeaten and there’s been games we’ve not even played that well in.

“We started well at Edinburgh City and since then we’ve been grinding results out. I think we can challenge for promotion.

“We sneaked in the play-offs last year with some great form from Christmas onwards so we hope we can be up there again. We’ve built from last year and we’ve strengthened the squad so hopefully we can better what we achieved last year.”

Watson dedicated his winner at Galabank to his late uncle Paul.

He said: “It’s been a tough week for my family because my uncle died and we had the funeral on Wednesday. He was only 54 so everyone’s feeling his loss.

“He was a big football fan so I’m dedicating that one to him. It was good to get a goal for him.”

Annan pressed for an equaliser as the second half wore on but Montrose held firm.

Watson said: “It probably wasn’t our best performance. We know we can play a lot better than that.

“I felt we could have gone on and won it more comfortably than we did.”

Dedicated goal: Paul Watson.