I'm a little worried about the derby up and coming. On paper its a 3-nil. But after the 4-3 at Gayfield, and our struggle at 1-0 with a medicore team. I am worried that the tractor boys will get a result despite big Jims best efforts.
Thoughts?

Having seen both teams in recent weeks, well...

Montrose should have enough to see them off, but I don't think it will be a gubbing. If Sandy Wood plays (and with the only other option open to Faarfir being "Fingers" Butter, he will) he'll gift one goal at least. I felt really sorry for him when I last saw him, we all know there's a good keeper in there but his confidence and form are totally, totally shot.

That said there's a lot of ex-Montrose people in the current Faarfir set up who will relish playing against the current team, Kerrigan in particular. The pace has gone but he still is very important to Forfar's team when he plays. Rattray is still a decent centre half at this level

Forfar don't have goals up front at all, however, and are further hampered by a joke of a manager. They have a lot of rebuilding and reshaping to do. Montrose have re-shaping to do too, it would seem, after a few lacklustre performances of late, but I'm going for a 2-0 or 2-1 home win.

Sandy has possibly gifted a few goals in recent weeks, but from watching the footage back this has more to do with making wrong choices at cross balls as opposed to making complete hashes of it. At end of day Sandy over time has kept saved us more goals than he's cost us.

Suspensions for Stephen Mcnally and john ovenstone wont help our cause, but hopefully Keggs will be recovered from flu to take a staring role.

Couple of silly mistakes last week, and while deservedly beaten, there was enough positives to take from the game to allow most supporters to go into Saturday with some cautious optimism.

I am slightly worried going into this one, like I was last weekend

we *should* be able to mop up here, but that counts for nothing given our performances of recent

can we please go back to passing football and skinning players with the ball at feet?

I have a lot of time for kegsy and I think he is a terrific player to have in the team, i hope for our sake he is out with the flu

I am also slightly worried about this game given Faaarfir's recent improvement in form (especially their victory over the fishy ones). With the quality of player we have we should win this one, but it wont be as easy as the 4-1 demolition we dished out earlier in the season, because we are not playing well at the moment.

Our problems will be in goals and up front. Back to middle we have improved greatly in recent weeks, Rattray and Fraser being fit the key reasons for this. Ovenstone and McNally are big miss's for us can't see us keeping a clean sheet agaisnt a strong looking Montrose strikeforce so it'll come down to if anyone can score for us.

Montrose will win by 3 clear goals.

They might do but what does that say about your mob?

Sorry I can't be there for Keggsy's return to Links Park: surely a real player from the days of real grass. He held the Mo together in midfield. I just hope that he participates in a cracking game and won't care too much, should the result go against his team!

It says that our mob have won once since October began, and we needed to play 10 men just to make the game even and 9 men to look comfortable victors.

The fact that we're in a playoff place says enough about the quality of the this league.

Thanks for clearing that up.

It will be interesting to see if Forfars' new signing will make his debut versus his home town club!

I believe a trialist will be included in the Forfar pool tomorrow.

Think we will win this one no problem we have a full squad to choose from so we can get back to playing our strongest team which has to be the main thing.

Henner?

No, he has not appeared back on the scene. Anyhow I believe his registration papers were retained by Montrose??

you're right about his registration papers hence my surprise above.

was just trying to work out who said mysterious trialist was and couldn't think of another answer.

not tempted to "exclusively reveal" the player's identity?

No, it's a wonder that some Forfar lads are not announcing it as yet! I do know that he has played a couple of games for the Loons reserve side, against Montrose and Arbroath and he has suitably impressed Moffat, hence his call up.

I think I know of whom you speak - Perhaps played most lately for a home town junior side?

Yes. Craig Anderson

Affirmative, but C'Way The Mo has stolen my thunder!

Is this Craig Anderson someone we should be worried about?

:D:D:D

Seriously, well done to Forfar.

Apparently judging by the complete sitter he missed with 5 minutes to go he still cares about Montrose too!!!!!

Was this the poorest "derby" ever seen anywhere. Mo in first gear treating the whole 90 minutes like a training session - and suitably punished for it. Forfar proving why they are bottom of the league. The ref and the far side linesman were on a different planet from the players. Onlythe stand side linesman could merit pass marks and, churlish as it may seem, even then he was extremely slow with some of his offside decisions.

All in all a complete waste of time with entertainment value zero. No doubt someone from Forfar will be able to find some positive to this attempt at a game as a spectator sport. After all they took the points. But, if they were actually at LP supporting Forfar well done.

If this game really satisfied anyone as entertainment then that person should report to a doctor as soon as possible.

I'd agree it was a shit game but I don't care

I think we merited our lead at half-time. Montrose had spells of possession at the beginning and end of the first half but most of the pressure was provided in around a 15-20 minute spell by us, in which we got our goal, a thumping header from Rattray from an excellent delivery.

2nd half Montrose pressed but only forced Wood into making one save, it was a great one though, with Doris missing the rebound. That apart Montrose had a lot of free-kicks and corners which Sandy flapped at a few times, yet no clear cut chances.

It got very scrappy and ill-tempered and although I don't think he had a good game, actually far from it, the ref did well to not throw cards about as some other refs would. The incident with Lunan and your left-back could easily have seen 2 red cards but fair play to the ref; he thought about it, talked to them, then issued yellows.

Steve Kerrigan is a lucky boy too

I think the 0-0 Arbroath v Montrose Derby at Gayfield on Jan2nd last year has to take the worst ever Derby award that I can remember

I think they should just stop the league for the season right now, before it gets any more embarrasing! How can we be so poor and still be third? East Fife are ahead of the "chasing pack" by a country mile. Is there any point in any of the also-rans even bothering to show up for the play-offs? Even if by some miracle one of them got up a division, it would be shaping up as a yoyo back to the morgue of Scottish Football that is the SFL 3. It's unbelievable!

Yes - stop the league, we want to get off too. It supports my idea of having two seasons yer year - each team playing the other only twice then starting all over again

On the other hand, if you take East Fife out of the picture, todays results mean that there is quite a close competition emerging for the play-off places so that could make life interesting again. You need a level playing field and we may have that.

whilst i would agree that yesterday was probably not the best advert for scintillating soccer, i have to say that the reaction on here seems to be more about how jobby Montrose were as opposed to giving us any credit for a fine battling (and in the first half certainly footballing) performance.
Thought we fully deserved the 3 points, although very much had to earn them in the 2nd half.
Montrose loosing their on-field discipline proved to be their undoing i think.

Well done brummo you have summed up my thoughts perfectly. I have absolutely nothing to add!!!

Agree with the captain 1st half we played well and controlled the game,took one chance and missed a few good chances as well.


2nd half was poor as we didnt get the midfield grip that we had in the 1st,but montrose didnt offer very much, sandy had one outstanding save and that was all montrose could get on target,our defence mopped everything else up.

We were pretty pish yesterday and our poor performances has coincided with Jay Stein's poor performances.

Hopefully get back on track this coming weekend.

He looked very uninterested today as did a number of the other players. Least Weir agrees that our form has been poor for last two months. Coincides with Wood and then Baird getting injured.

Bloody Forfar done my coupon again.

ssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh

a one liner? is that it?!?!

Stealing yer money!!!!

Serves you right for betting against the loons.

Never bet on derbies you should have learnt that a long time ago.

that was the worst load of pish ive seen in a long time, paid a tenner to watch that rubbish too. i pay less than a tenner to watch premier league danish football and its a damn site better than the crap on show there...i had had enough by half time as did a few others i noticed..how do they expect the fans to flock back when they serve up stuff like that..