Match Preview: Cowdenbeath v Greenock Morton

After Saturday's vital win at Firhill it's Central Park for thrills this time as we take on Greenock Morton in another important match for Jimmy Nicholl's side. 

With Ross County also in action against table topping Raith Rovers on Tuesday it could well prove to be a massive night in the battle to avoid the relegation play-offs and stay clear of bottom placed Stirling Albion. Nicholl will be looking for his side to build on Saturday's after his side claimed all three points and a clean sheet away to Partick Thistle. Lee Makel, Jon Roberton, Kyle Miller and Ritchie Vauls (pictured) will be hoping that they have done enough to retain their places with John Armstrong, Bob Malcolm, Colin Cameron and Scott Linton are all rated doubtful for the match.

"It was a great result and performance for us away at Firhill at the weekend and a vital three points", said Nicholl.

"We kept it very tight at the back on Saturday and restricted Partick Thistle to very few chances. That gave us something to build on and we always looked dangerous on the counter attack.

"We will need to do the same against a very good Morton team and we will be looking to use home advantage to try and pick up another three points and put pressure on the teams above us."

Joe Mbu has been ruled out for up to 6 weeks and is a definite absentee along with Danny Mackay and Dene Droudge.

This will be the 4th meeting between the 2 teams this season - the opening match at Cappielow saw us claim a 2-1 win.  The opening goal was a special one from Mark Ramsay with his stunning overhead kick winning him the SFL Goal of the Month competition for September. Moments later Stewart Kean equalised before John Dempster slotted a low shot from a tight angle into the net to secure a vital 3 points.
 
The first match at Central park saw a thrilling 2-2 draw with goals from Marc McKenzie and Colin Cameron cancelling out Jenkins and Grahams strikes.  Incredibly we played the majority of the game with 10 men after Davie Hay was sent off and youngster Lee Wilson made his debut and managed to save a penalty. Our first match in 2011 saw us crash to a 3-0 defeat through goals from Jenkins, Graham and O'Brien.
 
Cowden are showing sings of revival in recent weeks with some battling performances earning some valuable points. The goals of Greg Stewart are proving vital with the young striker now having scored our last 4 goals and he is now battling Mark Ramsay at the top of the scoring charts. Hopefully he can continue his scoring run on this day which has not seen Cowden score many goals in recent years.  Since 1994 we've played 6 games on this day and only scored 4 goals. In fact only Kevin Gordon and John Dempster are our only players to have scored on this day recently. Our last result on this date was in 2008 with Dempster scoring at the start of the second half before a last gasp goal meant we dropped 2 vital points.
 
it will be a tough game though with Morton showing some form in their away matches lately - 7 points from the last 5 games is a respectable total for any club. In fact it is miles better than our home record with 2 points out of 15 (admittedly we've played a number of the league top clubs) so something will have to change for us to pick up a crucial 3 points.
 
Match of the day fact of the week:- Despite finally getting a clean sheet this season we still have kept the least number of clean sheets in the league this season!