Sean Fagan has warned East Kilbride will need to play much better than they did against Airdrie if they want to down Cove Rangers this Saturday.
Draw at Airdrie
Kilby were on course to make it back-to-back wins in League One when Fagan headed home from Lewis McGrattan’s free kick after 65 minutes at New Broomfield.
However, a tired tackle from Jamie Hamilton on Liam McLeish eight minutes from time handed the Diamonds a penalty and McLeish made no mistake from the spot to deny Kilby victory in a 1-1 draw.
Cove Rangers challenge
The League Two champions now host a Cove Rangers side who have already beaten them this season, winning 2-1 at Balmoral Stadium in the Premier Sports Cup last month, so Fagan knows they can’t afford to put in as poor a display as they did in Monklands.
The defender and stand-in captain for injured striker Cami Elliott told the News: “We’ve got four points so far but I would say it should be six points. We need to see games out better than that.
“The start so far is great but we want to win games and we know the performances need to be much better.
“We played Cove in the cup and lost so we think it will probably be more of the same this week, in the sense they will probably sit in and try to frustrate us again.
“We need to be better on the ball this time and better than we were on Saturday.
“It was so stop-start but we weren’t good enough, we can’t go about blaming referees for that result.
Performance concerns
“Our first-half performance was miles off it. And the second half wasn’t much better.
“We kept going back to the goalie and I think the gaffer said it in the changing room that it just wasn’t good enough from start to finish.
“We go 1-0 up and we should see the game out from there. But we give away a penalty and that comes from us not doing what we are supposed to do, and it just fell off from there.
“The home form is massive and we really want to win games at our own place so we will hopefully get another win.”
Injury update
Elliott, who bagged six goals in four League Cup games but is yet to feature in the league, has been missing through a hamstring issue.
But there is some hope the 27-year-old could be back for Saturday’s clash at K-Park.
Fagan added: “The squad is strong enough to deal with injuries. We have players who are like for like and there is good squad depth, while there is probably going to be a few more players coming in.
“But Cami is a big miss, obviously, and we hope he will be back soon.”
Kick-off at K-Park on Saturday is 3pm, with third-place EK looking to stay in touch with the top two, Hamilton Accies and Ross County, on six points.
