WE HAVEN’T BLOWN TITLE

Diamonds boss insists there’s still a chance

Ian Murray insists Airdrie haven’t blown their shot at the League One title, and says there will be many more twists and turns over the last 12 games.

Diamonds boss Murray watched his side draw 1-1 at leaders Cove Rangers on Saturday, keeping the gap between them at seven points, but says ending the quarter with wins over Montrose, Peterhead and Clyde would keep them in the hunt.

Callum Smith struck at the Balmoral Stadium to level Harry Milne’s seventh-minute opener in what Murray says was an entertaining game.

But he knows his side must work hard to eat into that deficit.

He said: “The gap stayed the same, we know we need to cut that, but there’s a long way to go, 12 games to go, and lots of twists and turns.

“But for us to be still chasing Cove and within realistic range of them is good.

“Promotion is still within our grasp. We want to win the league, but so do Cove Rangers, Falkirk, Queen’s Park, and I wouldn’t rule out Montrose as well, absolutely not.

“Only one of us can win it, and then you’ve got the play-offs.

“I think at the start of the season everybody looked at the league and thought that would probably be the top six or seven teams, we don’t know in what order, and there was always going to be teams that would miss out.

“We need to make sure that we’re not one of them, and at the moment we’re in a decent position.

“I think the fact that we’re even going into the last quarter as title challengers is an achievement in itself.”

Murray added: “If we can get that gap cut, going into the last quarter, even down to five points, we’d be fairly happy.

“We have to play them still at home, which will probably make or break the way the title goes. We might win that and still be playing catch-up, we’ll just have to wait and see.

“The end of this quarter is really important – I think there’s three to go, Montrose, Peterhead, Clyde – which are all winnable, but very lose-able as well if we don’t play well or don’t perform to the levels that we can.

“If we can get nine points now to end the quarter it will have been a really strong quarter for us, and it would pretty much guarantee our play-off position.

“Then it’s about how close can we get to Cove, going into that last quarter.”

Defiant Ian Murray