Petrie targets home form improvement

Montrose boss Stewart Petrie is looking for his team to “kick on” after ending a three-game losing streak by beating Brechin in last Saturday’s Angus derby at the Glebe.

The Gable Endies had to come from behind to beat City with the result and performance delighting the Links Park manager.

Now, Petrie is looking for back-to-back league wins for the first time this season when Montrose entertain Dumbarton, under new boss Jim Duffy, this afternoon.

Petrie said: “It was a great performance from start to finish last week and I thought we thoroughly deserved our victory. The boys responded well to going down to what was a really poor goal from our point of view.

“We had made a couple of changes to our formation and personnel and thankfully it paid off.

“Hopefully we can take a bit of confidence from the win and kick on now.

“We will certainly have to be at our best again this week against a Dumbarton side who had a fantastic result in the first game after Jim took over.

“I fully expect them to be up in the playoff spots come the end of the season as they have a good squad packed with quality.

“However, it would be great from our point of view to make it back-to-back wins in the league.

“Our home form hasn’t been great so that is something we are also looking to put right.”

A win over the Sons would take Montrose off the foot of the League 1 table but Petrie admitted that while it would be a psychological boost, he is more concerned with the result not the bigger picture at the moment.

He added: “If we can beat Dumbarton, it would take us off the bottom of the league but it is still early days.

“For instance, if Forfar had drawn against Raith last week, we would only have been two points off the promotion play-off spot.

“Psychologically it is always good to be off the bottom of the table but the main thing is the three points.”

Montrose keeper Allan Fleming is a major injury doubt after he had stitches inserted in a knee gash last week at Brechin.