Preview: Cowdenbeath v Brechin City

It's the first home game of the league season on Saturday as Cowden host the team that relegated us last season. 

After a pulsating 2-2 draw away to Forfar Athletic confidence will be high in the squad as the team played some excellent football and were very unfortunate to not snatch all 3 points from the game.

"We were a bit unfortunate not to take all three points last weekend," commented Colin Cameron

"We played some excellent football and created chances throughtout the game and could even have won it in the closing minutes when Marc McKenzie went so close. Unfortunatlely we only took two chances and lost two unavoidable goals.

"There were without a doubt more positives than negatives to take from the game and the fact we left Station Park unhappy with a point reflects that.

"I'm looking for more of the same this weekend but the boys will need to learn to be more ruthless in front of goal if we are going to pick up three points.

"Brechin have been there or there abouts for the past few seasons and I'm sure they will be one on the front runners again this season so we will need to be at our best."

Greg Stewart trained on Thursday night and is in the squad after recovering from the dead leg against Forfar. Danny Mackay is out due to injury and illness while Thomas O'Brien and Dene Droudge are both still short of match fitness.

Our recent record against Brechin is a bit up and down.  Obviously we suffered the play-off loss last season but of course the year before we defeated our opponents 3-0 on aggregate to win the 1st Division play-offs. Before those games we had gone 5 unbeaten against City but times have changed since then and it is almost two completely different sides that will take to the field at Central Park on Saturday.

A worrying omen going into the match is our recent record on this date.  Our last 2 matches on the 13th of August see 2 defeats with no goals scored!  In 1994 we lost 2-0 to Ross County and in 2005 we lost by the same scoreline at home to Queens Park. The game against the amateurs was of course Mixu Paatelainen's first match in charge and this was when he was just getting to know the team.  SPL star Darren McGregor was sent off for us in the match as Weir and Reilly scored the goals for Queens.

It was almost 10 years to the date when Brechin relegated us last season from when we narrowly pipped them to promotion under Gary Kirk.  The 2 sides always seem to end up in big matches recently - play-off games, Championship battles and even Scottish Cup games which tend to head to replays.  It's fair to say that this is a big game for both sides so early in the season!