Montrose have the firmer footing as East Fife visit Links Park
Recent form, the shared opponents and September's meeting all point the same way before Montrose host East Fife in League One, though none of it by much.
By Barrie Moran,
One afternoon on 10 October is doing a lot of damage to Montrose's numbers. Ross County left Links Park with a 5-0 win, and that single result accounts for five of the eight goals Montrose have conceded in their last five matches. Take it out and the other four games show three conceded, never more than one in any of them. That is no reason to pretend the Ross County match did not happen. It is a reason to read the bare totals with some care before East Fife arrive on Saturday.
Montrose: unbeaten in three, short of goals
The sequence is D W D L L, newest first. They drew 1-1 at Hamilton Academical on 31 October and beat Peterhead 3-0 at home the week before. Before that came a 1-1 at East Kilbride, the Ross County defeat and a 1-0 loss at Airdrieonians. That is one win, two draws and two defeats, with five scored and eight conceded.
The goals are the concern. Three of the five came against Peterhead, which leaves two in the other four matches, and Montrose failed to score in both defeats. Since that bad patch in early October, though, they have not lost.
East Fife: one good day among several bad ones
East Fife come in off their best result of the run, a 2-0 home win over Queen of the South on 31 October. It is also their only win in five and their only clean sheet. Before it came a 2-1 defeat at Hamilton Academical, a 3-0 home loss to Alloa Athletic, a 1-1 draw at Cove Rangers and a 3-0 home defeat by East Kilbride.
That adds up to four scored and nine conceded, and half of those four goals arrived in a single match. Two three-goal defeats at home inside a month is the part of the record that would worry me most if I were following East Fife.
The shared opponents
Both sides have played Hamilton Academical and East Kilbride in the last five weeks, which gives a rough yardstick. Montrose drew 1-1 away at both. East Fife lost 2-1 at Hamilton and 3-0 at home to East Kilbride. Two matches is a small sample, and the venues are not the same, but on common ground Montrose took two points and East Fife took none.
The previous meeting
The only recent meeting went Montrose's way, a 2-1 win at East Fife on 19 September. A single result from seven weeks ago settles nothing on its own, but it sits comfortably alongside everything else.
The verdict
Neither side has form worth boasting about, and the evidence on both is thin. Still, it points one way. Montrose are at home and unbeaten in three, and they have done better against the teams both clubs have faced. East Fife have conceded three or more twice in five and won once.
My view is a home win, and probably a tight one, given how hard Montrose have found goals outside the Peterhead match. What would change my mind is East Fife repeating the Queen of the South performance. A second clean sheet in a row would make last week look less like an exception and more like a turn. A draw would not surprise me much. An away win would.