The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Elgin are tough enough to realise title ambition
Borough Briggs: McKenzie likes what he sees from City squad
Elgin City midfielder Marc McKenzie knows all about winning titles and reckons the Black and Whites have what it takes to win League 2 this season.
McKenzie was coming through the youth ranks at Livingston when they were promoted to the top-flight as Division 1 champions in 2001.
After spells in the lower divisions at Albion Rovers, Stenhousemuir and East Stirling, McKenzie moved on to Cowdenbeath, who he helped win the Division 2 title in 2012.
The 30-year-old joined Elgin last summer, having helped Rovers win League 2 in his second spell at Cliftonhill last season.
With 12 games remaining, starting with today’s trip to Montrose, McKenzie believes Jim Weir’s side is more than capable of retaining its place at the top of the l eague, with a two-point lead on secondplaced East Fife.
McKenzie said: “I’ve won three titles and each time I’ve hadabit of a gut feeling about how things were going to go.
“We have a good enough team to do it. I would love to win the same league for two years in a row.
“The management team has done a brilliant job since coming in. The aim for us was to make the playoffs so, hopefully, even if we get another couple of wins, we could perhaps secure our place and push on from there.
“We
just need to keep trying to turn the screw and keep going.
“Our home form has been good all season, so i f we keep getting a few points away from home we’ll not be far away.”
McKenzie believes defensive solidity is pivotal to City’s hopes of a title win, with the Moray outfit having conceded 31 league goals in 24 matches.
He added: “If we defend well and keep clean sheets we are always going to do well.
“The main thing with Albion Rovers last seasonwas that we had the best defensive record, which goes to show it makes a massive difference.
“We’ve got players at the other end of the pitch who will score goals. The likes of Craig Gunn and Brian Cameron could go on to play at a higher level.” Rangers manager Mark Warburton wants an end to artificial surfaces in the top flight as he fears attacker Martyn Waghorn’s season could be over after he suffered an injury on Kilmarnock’s artificial pitch.
Waghorn went off immediately after winning and scoring a fourth-minute penalty in the Championship leaders’ 2-1 Scottish Cup fifth-round replay win at Rugby Park on Tuesday.
Rangers will be back on the plastic tomorrow at Queen of the South and Warburton said: “Martyn is seeing a specialist in London to get a more detailed report.
“There is no surgery required which is most pleasing. Hopefully he will be back for the end of the season but there is a possibility hewon’t. There is no
“On grass he wouldn’t have had the same nature of injury”
doubt in our minds, from a coaching and medical perspective, that his injury wouldn’t have been of this nature if it hadn’t been for the pitch.
“When we use the term ‘unforgiving’ we meant in termsof the hardness of the pitch. It is harder than a grass pitch would have been– it is as simpleas that. Had that been on grass he wouldn’t have had the same nature of injury.
“That is just a simple fact and that has been backed upby the medicalteamand coaching staff who saw the initial impact of the injury.”
Asked if he did not want artificial pitches in Scottish football, the former Brentford manager said: “Not at the highest level, we need to be clear on that.
“I understand the financial climate, the need for revenue, we are not ignoring that. But at the highest level, to attractmoreinvestment, wouldit not be better to have a consistently high quality level of grass pitch in the Premiership?”