East Fife and Peterhead keep beating each other's conquerors
East Fife host Peterhead in League One after both sides faced four of the same opponents and got almost mirror-image results.
By Barrie Moran,
East Fife and Peterhead have spent the last five weeks playing the same opponents. Four of the five clubs each side has faced since 10 October are shared: Alloa Athletic, Cove Rangers, Montrose and Queen of the South. That rarely happens, and it gives Saturday's meeting at Bayview something close to a side-by-side comparison. What it shows is two teams who keep beating the sides that beat the other.
How the shared fixtures went
- Alloa Athletic won 3-0 at Bayview on 17 October. A fortnight later Peterhead beat them 2-1 at home.
- Montrose beat Peterhead 3-0 on 24 October. On 7 November East Fife went there and won 2-1.
- Queen of the South won 1-0 at Peterhead on 10 October. They then lost 2-0 at East Fife on 31 October.
- Cove Rangers drew 1-1 with East Fife on 10 October and lost 2-0 at Peterhead a week later.
Against those four clubs East Fife won two, drew one and lost one, scoring five and conceding five. Peterhead won two and lost two, scoring four and conceding five. There is barely a sliver between them. Comparing results against the same clubs on different dates and grounds is a blunt instrument, but here it points the same way as everything else: this looks close.
East Fife come in on two wins
East Fife's run reads W W L L D, most recent first. The two wins, at Montrose and at home to Queen of the South, followed a 2-1 defeat at Hamilton Academical and that 3-0 home loss to Alloa. Across the five they have scored six and conceded seven, with one clean sheet. The Alloa result is the warning. It was their heaviest defeat of the run and it came at home, so Bayview has not been a fortress.
Peterhead's home and away split
Peterhead's sequence of L W L W L looks like a coin being flipped. Split it by venue and the pattern is clear. At home they beat Cove 2-0 and Alloa 2-1, and lost narrowly to Queen of the South. Away from home they lost 3-0 at Montrose and 4-1 at Ross County last weekend. Five scored and nine conceded overall, with one clean sheet, and their worst results all came on the road.
That is the detail I keep returning to. Saturday is another away day.
The August meeting
The only previous meeting this season went Peterhead's way, 2-1 on 15 August. That fits the same theme: it was played at Peterhead. One game in August is thin evidence for November, but it is a reminder that these two have already produced a tight one.
Verdict
I lean towards East Fife. They are the side in better recent form, they are at home, and Peterhead's two most recent away trips both ended in heavy defeats. Look at the shared fixtures and the mirror holds, so I would not lean far.
What would change my mind is Peterhead's away form proving to be about who they played rather than where. If they come to Bayview and keep it as tight as they managed in their home wins, the Alloa result shows East Fife can be got at on their own ground. Five matches is not much of a sample, and in a fixture this evenly balanced, a draw would not surprise anyone.