Jamie Watt says Banks o’ Dee’s season starts now and has challenged his side to pick up as many points as possible.
The Aberdeen outfit return to action against Rothes at Mackessack Park in the Breedon Highland League tonight.
Dee’s good start to the season was derailed last week with a 24-point deduction for fielding an unregistered player in their squad on eight occasions.
That leaves the Spain Park side bottom of the division with -1 points.
Looking ahead to their first fixture since the news, manager Watt said: “I said to the players at the weekend that’s the end of it.
“We’re not going to talk about it any more and we get back to playing games and winning games.
“The target has always been to win as many games as you can, so nothing changes in that regard.
There’s still 66 points to play for so we need to try to get as many of them as we can”
“We start again and our season basically starts now. I won’t make any wild predictions about what we can achieve.
“But as a squad we’ll stick together and hopefully start winning games again.”
With this evening’s fixture the first of 22 league games left for Banks o’ Dee, Watt wants to start moving up the table.
He added: “The players want to use it as motivation and that’s what you’ve got to do.
“First and foremost we need to be looking at getting in among the teams directly above us and then we can maybe set a target or two.
“There’s still 66 points to play for so we need to try to get as many of them as we can.”
Rothes ready for test
Rothes manager Ross Jack expects to face a fired-up Dee side, which he admits makes the Speysiders’ task more difficult.
It took two stoppage-time goals from Fraserburgh to defeat Rothes at the weekend and Jack is hoping to avoid another hard luck story.
He said: “You can look at what happened to Banks o’ Dee in a few different ways, but I would think it will create a siege mentality and they’ll get wired in.
“They’ll be desperate to get points on the board to start climbing the league.
“They won’t sit back and feel sorry for themselves. Their management team and players will want to push forward and concentrate on matters on the park.
“They’ll be looking to get points on the board as soon as possible, but we want to stop them doing that against us.
“It’s a tough game for ourselves. We gave a good account of ourselves at Fraserburgh without getting the outcome – if we can produce something similar, I’ll be happy.
“The performance was something we’ve been looking for, but we have to try to turn the hard luck stories into wins.”
News from around the Highland League
Elsewhere, Keith are without Ryan Robertson, Luke Emmett, Nick Gray and Joey Wilson for their derby clash with Buckie Thistle at Kynoch Park.
Kevin Fraser, Sam Morrison and Scott Adams are still sidelined for the Jags.
Deveronvale could have as many as 10 missing for Formartine United’s visit to Princess Royal Park.
Aaron Hamilton, Jamie Tinnock, Jay Goldie, Ben Allan and Matt Jamieson are out for the Banffers, while Dane Ballard, Grant Noble, Robbie Allan, Antonio Jam and Jayden Bradford are doubtful.
United are also short of bodies with Scott Lisle, Aaron Norris, Tyler Mykyta, Graeme Rodger, Kieran Lawrence, Julian Wade and Ryan Spink set to miss out.
Scott Davidson and Calum Howarth are absent for Nairn County’s Station Park meeting with Wick Academy, while James Mackintosh returns for the Scorries.
Conversation