Arbroath revisted
Friday, 30th Aug 2019A familiar road to Arbroath for Kyle Turner
Above: Kyle Turner awaits decision to abandon match at Arbroath in January
If anyone in the Pars squad knows the League One champions best it is Kyle Turner since last season he logged 462 minutes playing against Dick Campbell’s team. His league record last season as a Stranraer player was lost two drawn two, and one match abandoned. The sole victory a 1-0 cup victory at Gayfield in November. He was able to confirm:-
“I know what it is like going up there, it is a hard place to go. It is always a good pitch but you just never know with the weather conditions what you’re going to get going up there.
“It’s always a battle, but I’ve done pretty well up there. We put them out of the Scottish Cup with Stranraer.
“But I know how hard it is going up there and we need to be ready for a battle because it is going to be a battle when you go up there.”
Every visitor to Arbroath knows how the Angus town can get battered by the elements. Kyle experiences that when Stranraer’s game there in January fell victim to the wind and the match was abandoned:-
“I played the day the game was abandoned, there was only 12 minutes gone and the ref abandoned it. The weather conditions can play a big part up there. You saw that last season with the wind. It was a no-contest, really.”
The weather for the last day in August is predicted to be nothing great and Kyle too join in the forecasting:-
“One day it can be raining very heavy as well, it just depends.I think we’re going up there at a good time of the year and hopefully we can get the ball down and play, and get the three points.”
The 21 year old midfielder has every respect for the opposition manager, Dick Campbell, and knows that with his previous strong Dunfermline connection how much he will want the bragging rights:-
“He’ll definitely be determined to beat Dunfermline and I know what he’s like as well. He’s been up there for a while now and he sets his team up to play one way, and they do it well. That’s why they’re in the Championship this season.”
Kyle will know most of the Arbroath team since really the American James Murphy and the four subs last week Derek Gaston, Robert Wilson and the two on loan Hibees Ben Stirling and Josh Campbell are the only additions to last season’s squad.
“They’re big boys, they’re a physical team, but they’ve got good players and they can play. They’ve always been like that.
“They’ve got the likes of Bobby Linn out wide and they’ve got a couple of other good players. You saw with him scoring 23 goals last season, he is going to be a danger man for them. They’ll be tough opponents.”
Kyle agreed that there was disappointment in the camp after Saturday
“After the three performances before that it was disappointing that we weren’t at it. We knew after the game that Dundee United deserved to win the game.
“We did not press as high as what we have been. Obviously Celtic was a completely different game, we went there to try and frustrate but against Dundee and Queen of the South, the two games before that, we pressed high and got in their faces. They knew that they were in a game but I don’t feel that we did that enough (against Dundee United).”
Kyle was not willing to use the Celtic match and its physical and mental strain as an excuse:-
“You get a full week after that to prepare. When we got back to East End Park we needed to take the game to Dundee United and we never did that.
“It is mindset, trying to change it. Obviously we wanted to win against Celtic but we knew that they would put us under a lot of pressure. Against Dundee United we were looking for a similar performance as against Dundee at home where they didn’t expect us to come out pressing high but United played well on the day and deserved to win.
“They knew how we were set up to play but they must have been surprised that they got a bit more time than they would have expected when you compare it to the Dundee game. “
Dundee United are the early pace setters in the Championship and and Kyle agreed that they are worthy title favourites, the match provided a good demonstration of where the bar is set and the standard Dunfermline need to reach.
“They will be up there. They have got good players, Shankland upfront who will score you goals, McMullan out wide, they will be up there anyway challenging.
“It is a reality check to actually show that we need to be at that level to compete every week and have a chance of challenging at the top.”
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