Elgin City 1 v East Fife 1

A decent afternoon's football at Borough Briggs as two early season strugglers fought hard over a point apiece.

It was as competitive a match as I can remember at Elgin and it was played at a fast pace with no quarter given. Elgin's player manager, Ross Draper, initiated so much of what City did coming forward from his central defensive berth. Oh for similar at the Valley.

Elgin took the lead after 14 minutes when Draper found Cameron in space in the middle. He drew the Fifers central defence and slipped the charging Matty Wright through for a one-on-one finish.

The visitors were more comfortable on the ball and a foot quicker but City limited their chances. Draper and the excellent Ewan alongside him kept the back four in line and were aerially superior. 

Everything East Fife did came down their left and usually from winger Jack Healy. Indeed, it was him who burst into the box on 73 minutes and drew the foul that enabled the visitors to draw level. 

Meanwhile, the Addicks slumped to another defeat although Oxford were far less impressive than feared. An Alfie May leveller in the second-half gave the travellers hope but once again we made a major defensive howler to hand them the points.

The 'Holden Out' backlash has been loud and I am quite surprised by this given the love-in he has enjoyed. It is also patently clear that he has an imbalanced squad desperately short on goals due to inadequate rebuilding and injuries. I guess those who watched it yesterday will complain about the tactics and the laughable second goal we conceded after we poured forward in search of our own unlikely winner. However, my sympathy with him is limited given he is part if the Methvin clique and the fact he has gone along with the idea of a smaller squad and has been bigging up our rebuild when it must have been as obvious to him as us that it was well short of what was needed.

Having dropped to 19th, the R word was also being bandied about for the first time last night and I struggle to see what changes. Leaburn will make a difference and hopefully our injury situation will clear up but we don't have any money and I don't trust Methven when the pressure's on. He is likely to start making big decisions and, in my opinion, big mistakes. Relegation would be an £11m set-back for the investors but they might hope to sell a few players and the club to off-set their loss. For Charlton Athletic, however, it would be a disaster and with the ground and training ground in Duchatelet's hands we might not be far away from insolvency by then. Relegation would probably see us ground-share again at some point to avoid having to rent an empty Valley.