Weir will not take risk on forward

Elgin City forward Shane Sutherland will have a fitness test ahead of tonight’s League 2 game against Stirling Albion.

Sutherland was withdrawn from the City side which defeated Berwick Rangers 1-0 on Saturday, with manager Jim Weir deciding not to gamble on the fitness of his leading scorer who suffered a knee injury in the previous week’s 4-1 win against Clyde.

Weir hopes Sutherland will have benefited from the rest and said: “We were not going to take a chance with Shane.

“It was more important to give him a rest with the Stirling Albion game in mind. He will be assessed today.”

Elgin have the opportunity to move to within a point of second-placed Arbroath with a victory at Forthbank tonight, and with Elgin so far unbeaten in the league in 2017, Weir is determined to stretch the run without defeat to eight matches.

He added: “We showed a lot of character against Berwick and it was the type of result I’ve been crying out for.

“It was an ugly win, although I felt we fully deserved it.

“Hopefully we can finish off the month with a good result against Stirling Albion as March will be difficult with five games.

“If we can get through it and put some positive results together it puts us in a good position.

“Winning breeds confidence, although Stirling Albion will feel the same after a good result in beating Edinburgh City 1-0 on Saturday.

“We made too many mistakes when they beat us 3-2 at Borough Briggs in December. We need to make sure we don’t make the same ones again, but if we stick to our plan hopefully we can keep this run going.”

“It was more important to give him a rest with the Stirling game in mind”