Forfar Athletic v Linlithgow Rose – match preview

The ‘Loons’ enter the Scottish Cup at the second round stage this season when they entertain East of Scotland League side Linlithgow Rose at Station Park on Saturday.

The Rose are managed by former Stenhousemuir boss Brown Ferguson and currently sit third in the EOS Premier table, six points adrift of leaders Tranent Juniors but with a game in hand.

They, of course, won a third-round replay by the only goal of the game at Station Park back in January of 2016 at the second attempt, after a floodlight failure brought a premature end to the first fixture, this after Forfar had in fact been 3-1 up in the original tie at Prestonfield with under 20 minutes left to play.

The home side will head into Saturday’s tie on the back of a much-improved performance at Links Park last Saturday and for once with no new injury worries to report.

Sam Fisher has headed back to Dens Park following the expiry of his loan period, but Stuart Malcolm is delighted that Aberdeen and Dundee United have given permission for Jack MacKenzie and Florent Hoti respectively to play in the tie.

Daniel Scally also returned to the squad on Tuesday having missed the Cove and Montrose fixtures through Covid related reasons, part and parcel of everyday life never mind football at present and it would appear some time to come.

Goal scoring has of course been a major problem for the Athies this season with only five league goals to date, but only a couple of fine saves from Alan Fleming and the width of the post prevented a second-half counter being netted at Links Park last weekend.

In fairness to the ‘Gable Endies’ Marc McCallum also denied them on a few occasions, probably the most notable his first minute stop from a Graham Webster effort.

Linlithgow have of course already defeated our near-neighbours Brechin City 3-2 at the Glebe in the previous round of the cup this time around, a 2-1 success over Glasgow University recorded in a preliminary round tie.

Tommy Coyne and Ruari MacLennan two of four survivors in their squad from the 2016 jousts were amongst their scorers up the road at Brechin two weeks back.

Even sadly with games continuing behind closed doors at present, the magic of the cup will hopefully help inspire Gary Irvine and his teammates to clinch a third-round berth, but it will be no easy task, that is for sure.

The referee for the contest is the experienced Kevin Graham.