McManus at the double

McManus at the double as Lichties fightback

Paul McManus bagged a brace as league leaders Arbroath saw off a spirited East Stirling 3-2 at Ochilview Park.

First half  Arbroath took the lead after 20 minutes when Simon Murray took advantage of an awful mixup between defender and keeper to roll the ball into an empty net.  Other than that, we passed the ball well enough at times but never really opened up or got behind the Shire defence first half

 

Shire came close to an immediate equaliser but Marc McCallum produced a fine save to push Conor Greene's header over the crossbar.

 

Second half, we did not re-appear after the restart, whereas Shire were fired up, first to every ball and earned their just deserts

 

They drew level 10 minutes after the restart when David McKenna prodded home following some good work by Martin Shield.

Then less than a minute later,a poor clearance by McCallum was hammered back from near the halfway line by Neil McCabe for a fine opportunist goal to suddenly tranform the game

 

Subsitutions of McManus for Smith, Buchan for Carreiro and McBride for El-Zubaidi proved very effective.   A determined Ricky Little dribble brought a corner from which Paul Mcmanus connected for the equaliser in 73 minutes

Then the best move of the match down the left, with Craig Johnstone interpassing with teammates to create a cross which the determined Mcmanus converted on 82 minutes

Arbroath made hard work of this, but demonstrated both tactical nous and determination to turn it around after a bad spell at the start of the second half.