Lichties are ready to face ‘defining period’

ARBROATH 0 ALLOA 0

David Hutton believes the Red Lichties are ready to stand up to the daunting prospect of playing seven games in 21 days, a sequence which began with Saturday’s dismal goalless draw with fellow promotion chasers Alloa.

The experienced goalkeeper, who had his third clean sheet in a row, wasn’t too downbeat at dropping two points to a side which played the final 22 minutes with 10 men after Callum Smith was shown a straight red card for a dangerous challenge on Ricky Little.

He said: “It was a hard game, the conditions weren’t great but all-inall it was a fair result.

“Now we’ve got this busy schedule starting with Stranraer on Tuesday, but we are looking forward to it.”

Assistant manager Ian Campbell said: “I have to say a draw was fair.

“It was a scrappy game but I was disappointed with the way we played because we are better than that.

“We were up against 10 men towards the end and although we were in the ascendancy we didn’t create a lot of chances.

“Now we move on to Stranraer and that will be a hard game.

“There’s no doubt the next three weeks will be the defining period in our season with all these games coming up.

“But we have a strong pool of players who are ready for it.”

Chances were few and far between as the players struggled to keep the ball down in the wind.

Arbroath skipper Mark Whatley came close on a couple of occasions in the first half with from just inside the box.

But the visitors came closest to opening the scoring when Kris Renton’s header came off the inside of Hutton’s left-hand post before the danger was cleared.

Ryan Wallace forced a save from Alloa keeper Neil Parry with a header, while Garry Fleming did well to block a Michael McKenna effort at the start of the second half as Arbroath stepped up their efforts to make the breakthrough.

The Lichties failed to capitalise on their numerical advantage following Smith’s dismissal although Wallace again came close right on the final whistle.