This Friday sees the Scottish Championship get underway with our trip to Tynecastle.
Manager James McPake spoke to the press ahead of the season opener against Hearts and said of the match, “Excited for it, it’s been a long time since we played a league fixture. It’s always an important game, the first league game, so we are looking forward to it.”
“We’ve had a good pre-season, good preparation, some good friendlies. The downside is the Forfar game getting called off but we accept that because of the circumstances. We are happy, we would have liked to have had Jakubiak back already but he is getting there, apart from that we are looking strong and in good condition.”
“They have a lot of good players, as do we, so it’s going to be a good game.”
Last season James came up against Robbie Neilson when he was manager of Dundee United and after a summer switch to return to Tynecastle the manager was asked about facing him again this season, James continued, “He’s done well in this league before, he’s at a new club so I don’t think we can look too much about last season. He’s got a different set of players and a new environment. He’s been successful in this league. Looking through the squad, it’s a dangerous squad. They can chop and change. They have a lot of good players, as do we, so it’s going to be a good game.”
The league season will be a shorter one this term with only 27 matches and the manager highlighted what he feels will be key, “The important thing is the consistency I believe. Last season that let us down on three or four different occasions when we went on really poor runs. We can’t afford to do that, not because it’s a shorted season, we can’t afford to do that in any season. It cost us last season and we were never near the top where we want to be so it’s the consistency that matters.”
Subscribers can watch the full pre-match press conference with James and Lee Ashcroft on DeeTV – click here
