Shotts must be firing to shoot down Kilwinning Rangers, says boss

dailyrecord.co.uk:

John McKeown insists his Shotts side will need to be at their best to take anything from high-flying Kilwinning Rangers this weekend.The Bonny boss welcomes the second-place side to Hannah Park on Saturday for a crunch clash, where Shotts are hoping to pick up their first points of 2024.Last Saturday’s scheduled match at Rutherglen Glencairn fell victim to a frozen pitch, so McKeown will be hoping for better luck this weekend.Third-place Kilwinning are four points clear of eighth-place Shotts, although they have played four games more, and McKeown insists their rivals are stronger now than the last time they met in August in a 1-1 draw with 10 men, so they’ll have to up their game.He said: “Kilwinning are flying right now.“We went down there earlier in the season and we had 10 men for an hour and snatched a last-minute equaliser, which was deserved.“But I think they have improved tenfold since then.

We have strengthened as well, but I believe it will be a tough game.“It is a really hard league where anybody can beat anybody – you just have to look at the table – and we will need to be at our best to beat them.”We’ve got games in hand but it is all ifs and buts.“In terms of the age of our squad, the changes we’ve made and our budget, the guys have done fantastically well so far.

They have been a credit to themselves.“But we said the same at this stage last season and we ended up in a relegation dogfight.

So we can’t take anything for granted and we will be working really hard on our fitness over the next few months, if games keep getting called off.”On the Rutherglen game being postponed, McKeown added: “It’s part and parcel of being a Scottish lower division team.“We just had some hastily arranged training on astro to