The Spiders make the journey to the Kingdom of Fife to take on Darren Young’s East Fife at Bayview on Saturday afternoon as we kickstart what is sure to be a big challenge for Laurie Ellis’ squad in cinch League 1 this season.

Ahead of Friday training session at Lochinch the Head Coach gave his thoughts to the club media team, saying: “We are excited and looking forward to what we fully expect to be a tough campaign in League 1. We know right away that making the step up from League 2 presents a real challenge in itself and added to that we know that every team in the league has enjoyed a good, hard working pre season and will want to get off to as positive a start as possible. We are no different and there is a real sense of anticipation to get the league campaign up and running.”

“On the game itself we are absolutely expecting it to be a real challenge against a well organised and well drilled East Fife side. Darren is an experienced manager at this level who recruits well and likes to have his teams playing good football, so we are expecting a tough day.”

“We can take confidence and be pleased with some of what we did in the Betfred Cup campaign, on the other hand we have also looked at areas where we need to improve. Going forward the coaching staff will analyse every game in the same way to ensure we are striving to do everything in the manner in which we want to.”

“In terms of looking forward to the season as a whole, our sole aim is to be as competitive as possible every week. I’ve said that to the players already and reinforced the importance of going in to every game feeling that we have the opportunity to take something from it.”

“It’s been a really busy summer period and I am delighted that we have been able to keep a real good core of players with us from last season. I feel those who we have added to the squad can really help us this season and added to that, we have some good younger players coming up also. For me it was important that those we did add to the squad have that element of youth as well, with huge chunks of their careers ahead of them. We now need our older players to guide them through the campaign.”

On the injury front gaffer confirmed that he will still be without the services of Lee Kilday and Will Baynham for tomorrow’s visit to Bayview, adding: “We also also have one or two carrying niggling injuries that we are not sure about as yet for tomorrow, we’ll need to make a decision on them closer to kick off but in general terms with some others back in the squad, I feel we are starting to see the squad have that bit more strength. In terms of the longer term injuries, both Peter and Jai continue to make progress but they are only around half way through their rehab so far so it will be a while before they are back in contention.”

Supporters notes

Live streaming: East Fife TV  will be providing a live stream of the match at a cost of £12.50. You can purchase your match pass here https://eftv.info

QPTV: Post match reaction from the manager and a player will be available shortly after the final whistle, with match highlights available on Sunday morning. 

Social media: As always, you can get your team news as well as half time and full time score updates across all of our social media accounts. For live match updates, make sure you are following us on Twitter https://twitter.com/queensparkfc