East of Scotland: Page hopes for turn in Musselburgh fortunes after ending Penicuik's perfect start

Greg Page hopes he and his Musselburgh Athletic team-mates can use their stirring midweek win over Penicuik Athletic as a springboard to continue to move up the East of Scotland Premier League.

Olivebank Stadium home of Musselburgh

Wednesday night’s 1-0 win thanks to Matti King’s late penalty brought Penicuik’s 100-per-cent league start to an abrupt halt after ten games as Burgh secured their first league win over the Cuikie in over 12 years.

The result was particularly sweet for Page who signed up at Olivebank in July from Penicuik in search of regular game time.

“It was a tough game, we knew they were flying, and I know they are a very good team who are well organised,” said Page. “We thought if we could get at them and play our football, that we could get a result, and that’s what we did. I was delighted to get a clean sheet.

“We just need to kick on now. The manager [Joe Hamill] has come in and done really well with us, he wants us to play a certain style of football and we just need to do that and keep putting points on the board.

“We need to use Wednesday night as a platform to kickstart our season, and hopefully go to Tranent and do well. They’ve got brilliant players and a good set-up but we’ll go there to try and play our football.

“I loved my time at Penicuik, I love all the boys, I just needed to move and get some games. I just needed to play, I don’t want to be sitting on the bench, so hopefully I can get a run of games here and impress.”

Tranent boss Calum Elliot able to run the rule over tomorrow’s opponents on Wednesday night as their match against Linlithgow Rose was postponed due to COVID issues in the Rose squad. He’s expecting Burgh to come in to the match on a high.

“I had seen both teams a couple of times this season, and with us playing them both in quick succession, it was the perfect chance in the circumstances with our game being called off to see where both teams are at,” said Elliot.

“Musselburgh will be confident going into the game, but at the same time we are very confident ourselves. I’m anticipating a good match, two good sides that will want to compete [at the top end] come the end of the season.

“We’ll have the boys as best prepared as we possibly can to give ourselves the best possible chance to get the points that we are desperate to get. The boys are under no illusions that it’s going to be a tough match, and we will certainly make sure everyone knows what is expected of them.”

Tranent went top on goal difference without playing a game, but Elliot says it’s too early to look at league standings.

He continued: “I don’t pay a lot of attention to [the table], we just concentrate ourselves and make sure that we continue to pick up points. Against Tynecastle we badly let ourselves down, deserved what we got, we were woeful. It was probably the wake-up call the boys needed, and we’ve responded really well since then. We need to make sure our standards don’t drop because if they do, you get punished.”

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