Decent away turnout on a windchill night at New Bayview. After Saturday's fine win at Brechin, the side was shaken up with McLoughlin, McGuire and Rattray at the back, Booth out wide and Doris patrolling the right side. Hislop and Rss started up front agin in front of Mclean, Gibson and Redman
We started off showing some confidence and had the better of the opening exchanges. Another early goal gave us false hope. Gibson won the just over the halfway line, fed Booth who was rushing through down the left and he fired in a lovely curving low cross for Hislop to finish clinically.
As at Cowden last week, we seemed to retreat into our shell and allowed us to be forced back. Lichtie fans became increasingly agitated as east Fife dominated possession - we couldn't get near them and they were first to any loose ball. An erro in the midle (by McLean) allowed them breach our back line and McUnnie finished on the right on 25 minutes. Fife came fairly close a few times and Hill had to be sharp pulling off a great save from Linn as the whistle approached
Second half we felt an urgent shakeup was needed. Without ever carving any real openings we started to come into the game in the second half. With most of the defence up for a corner, the home team broke quickly down the right , Crawfoird held up the ball well and fed Murdoch who finished sweetly from 20 yards.
We went up the park and McGuire fired a header just over. But in truth we looked like we lacked the cohesion and cutting edge. Injuries to Ross, Hislop are a concern - Flyer and Marco came on but had little impact. 6 minutes from time, our increaisngly anxious defence was penetrated again - McCunnie took the ball well, dribbled round Hill to finish easily
Deflating in the extreme aftrer the bright start. The macth officials had a quite bizarre game, giving a series of plainly wrong decisions throughout - the majority against Arbroath. But this was not the reason we lost - we were a poor second best. We couldn't get hold of the ball in midfield and didn't create much threat upfront
East Fife's long unbeaten run against us continues. Worse still, we've lost ground in the race to escape the playoffs