Elgin City manager Jim Weir is determined to pay back the club’s supporters by securing a play-off place against Cowdenbeath on Saturday.
A dire run of 11 matches without a victory plunged City from title contenders to outside the top four, with Montrose leapfrogging the Black and Whites following the 3-2 loss at Arbroath last weekend.
The Moray outfit also suffered a dip in form towards the end of last term, but turned it around by winning their last two matches to secure a play-off position before going down 5-1 on aggregate against Clyde.
Elgin take on bottom of the table Blue Brazil in their final league game on Saturday, knowing they must better Montrose’s result against Clyde in order to book a play-off place.
Weir knows his side can still salvage its target for the season, and hopes the long wait for a victory ends at Borough Briggs this weekend.
He said: “The supporters have been great this year, home and away. They’ve backed the team through thick and thin, even through this really difficult spell.
“What tends to happen during a difficult period is people over-analyse and question attitudes and commitment.
“We’ve always tried to make sure we prepare right to try to win games.
“In the final quarter of the season we’ve come up a bit short in terms of quality and self-belief, as well as confidence.
“With that, players make mistakes and we’ve made too many.
“We’re in this situation through our own doing, albeit the likes of Annan and Montrose have had great spells, which has taken it out of our own hands.
“We’ve got to make sure we finish the last game with some optimism for the supporters.”
Elgin’s fate is out of their own hands but Weir wants one final push from his side, adding: “The warning signs have been there for a number of weeks and we’ve tried lots of things to stop it happening.
“A lot of the home games we’ve drawn in the last five, there are arguments there to say we should have won all five. We’ve put ourselves in good positions and even when we’ve gone behind we’ve been on top. Our away form has not been good enough and our goals against has not been good enough in the last quarter.
“We’ve got another game to put that right.”
