Complacency remains danger against toiling Blue Brazil

Cowdenbeath have lost four matches in a row but Peterhead manager Jim McInally has warned his players not to expect an easy afternoon against the Blue Brazil.

The Balmoor men are looking to bounce back from last week’s 1-1 draw with Montrose with a victory at Central Park and McInally said: “Cowdenbeath don’t lose many goals. Their last three games have all finished 1-0.

“I think a lot of that is down to their manager Billy Brown, he is a really good organiser and Central Park is never an easy place to go.

“We deserved three points last week against Montrose but that can happen in football, we will play worse and win.”

McInally has a number of injury worries but the Blue Toon manager still believes he has enough players available to pick up all three points.

Rory McAllister (thigh), David McCracken (Achilles), Jamie Stevenson (hamstring), Nicky Riley (calf) and Jack Leitch (knee) are among those who could miss out but midfielder Jordon Brown is back available after suffering a stress fracture of the fibula against Annan Athletic on the opening day of the season.

McInally added: “Our injury situation is quite bad, I will probably need a couple of them to go on the bench injured, but we just need to get on with it.

“I have basically only got 11 or 12 fit players to choose from.

“We are down to the bare bones and it will be a challenge but we still feel we have enough players available to get a result. We played a couple of cup ties this year where we changed our team dramatically and still won and there will be no excuses from us.

“The pleasing aspect is we have Jordon back available.

“We got his leg scanned a fortnight ago but we have only just received the results. Hopefully the rest will have done him good.

“Jordon is keen to get back involved as quickly as possible, which is why he was on the bench last week. But the injury hasn’t fully healed yet so we just need to be cautious with him.

“Hopefully it won’t be too long before we’re closer to full strength. training schedule for his players, and the new focus has been welcomed by Portuguese forward Goncalves.

He said: “It’s been a different week, we have been working more physically and from Thursday and Friday we worked tactically, which is different but it has been good because I think we needed to work more physically.

“He has a different way of thinking about football, he likes the players to be fit and scrap before everything, and then to play.”

Hearts travel to Hamilton today hoping to pick up their second win of what has been a turbulent season so far, and Goncalves recognises the importance of the fixture.

“It’s a game that we have to win and we will do everything we can to win,” he said.

Jim McInally