BAIRNS READY FOR HIGHLAND TEST

With a weekend away from matches, Ray McKinnon has been busy readying his troops for the last seven fixtures of the Ladbrokes Championship season. The Bairns are back with a bang as they face three matches in a week with trips to Inverness, Dumfries and a home match against Alloa Athletic on the cards. 

The Bairns boss met with the media earlier this week, here’s what he had to say: 

On last weekend…

“We had a good week, I think the break away from matches was good, everyone stayed together and worked hard. We managed to give them one extra day off, but other than that the guys haven’t really stopped. We are heading into three games in a week so we need to make sure we are in tip top condition for those matches. It’s going to be a tough three games especially with the traveling. We are up north then down south, but we are ready for it and looking forward to it.”

On the final seven matches…

“We’ve been saying all along that everyone will be involved in important games and they are. The next seven or eight games are going to be massive for everyone, you’ve got five teams at the top who are looking to get in the play-offs and win the league and then five teams at the bottom trying to avoid relegation and the play-offs at that end.”

We’ve just got to focus on ourselves, we’ve been saying that since we had zero points. We can’t rely on anybody and we’ve managed to catch Queen of the South in 7th so we just need to keep soldiering on and finish the season strongly. It’ll be a very interesting end to the season for everyone. There are no easy games in this league, we are happy to have the points that we do and we just want to add to that, but I cannot pay attention to anyone else.

On current form…

We’ve lost once in our last nine games, our squad is looking is good. We are strong and quick, the mentality is good and we’ve just got to go into every game to try and pick something up. We’re in decent form going into the business end of the season, but we’ll be taking absolutely nothing for granted.

On Inverness CT…

“Inverness are a decent side, they are hitting form at the right time and they have a good squad. It’ll be a tough game for us on Saturday, they’re in a good place, but our away form is up there with the best in the league since January. We are going to win the game, make no doubt about it. Jordan White is a big physical presence and they’ve got good players like Walsh, Dorans and Polworth around him, but we will warn the players of their strengths and weaknesses and make sure we are ready to go.”

On injury news and international players…

“We don’t have anyone struggling with injury which is a positive. Shayne Lavery missed out through a knock before he left to go on international duty, but the two games he has had when away will have done him good and we were really pleased to see both him and Zak getting goals while away too.”