Forfar Athletic face Spartans with September's 5-1 still to answer
Forfar Athletic are winless in five and Spartans won the only meeting this season 5-1. Form, common opponents and a verdict for Saturday.
By Barrie Moran,
Two months ago Spartans beat Forfar Athletic 5-1. It is the only meeting between the sides this season, and it is the result that hangs over Saturday's League Two fixture at Parkgrove Stadium at Station Park. One game is a thin basis for anything, and it was played at Spartans' ground, not Forfar's. But a four-goal margin is not something you wave away as a quirk either.
Forfar Athletic's run
Forfar come into this without a win in five: one draw, four defeats, six goals scored and 12 conceded, and no clean sheet. The detail that bothers me most is how narrow most of those defeats were. Dumbarton won 2-1. Elgin City won 2-1 at Forfar. Kelty Hearts won 2-1. Those were games there to be drawn, and none of them were. Then came the outlier, a 5-2 defeat at Stirling Albion, before last weekend's 1-1 at home to Edinburgh City finally stopped the losing run.
So the problem is not that Forfar can't score. They found the net in every one of those five matches. It is that they have not kept anyone out, and in a run of tight games that has been the difference between a point and nothing.
Spartans blow hot and cold
Spartans' sequence reads L W L W L, about as tidy a picture of inconsistency as the form guide offers. Two wins, three defeats, eight scored, 10 conceded, and no clean sheets either. The wins were convincing: 3-1 at Edinburgh City and 3-2 at home to Annan Athletic. The defeats include two home blanks, 0-2 against Kelty Hearts and 0-2 against Stranraer, and last week a 3-2 loss at Clyde.
If you believe in patterns, the sequence says a win is due. I don't, and neither should you. What the results do show is a side that, when it scores, tends to score more than once, and that has scored in both of its recent away matches.
Common opponents
Both clubs have played Edinburgh City and Kelty Hearts in this spell. Forfar drew 1-1 at home to Edinburgh City and lost 2-1 at Kelty: no wins, one draw, one defeat, two goals for and three against. Spartans won 3-1 at Edinburgh City and lost 0-2 at home to Kelty: one win, no draws, one defeat, three for and three against.
There is not much between them on that. Spartans did more against Edinburgh City, and did it away from home. Forfar at least scored against Kelty, which Spartans did not. Two matches each is a sample you could fit on the back of a programme, but it points to two sides closer together than the 5-1 suggests.
Verdict
My view is that Spartans edge this. They have shown a higher ceiling in their wins, they took Forfar apart the last time the sides met, and Forfar have not won since early October at the latest. Neither side has kept a clean sheet in five, so I would expect goals at both ends rather than a cagey afternoon.
What would change my mind is Forfar's habit of losing by one. A side that keeps getting within a goal is a side that can turn some of those into draws, and a home draw would not surprise me. If Forfar keep their first clean sheet of this run, the 5-1 starts to look like an afternoon from another season.