Raith Rovers striker Calum Elliot says he would love to break his league duck on Alloa’s plastic pitch this afternoon but would gladly swap another goal-less afternoon for three points.
The 27-year-old former Hearts forward looked set for a fruitful season ahead when he netted twice in Rovers’ 4-2 win over Forfar in the League Cup back in August, but he has endured a frustrating time of it after drawing a blank in his 13 appearances since.
The fact winger Ryan Conroy is the club’s current top scorer has drawn some criticism of the strikers at Stark’s Park of late, but Elliot is very much looking at the bigger picture.
“The most important thing is that we’ve won three games in a row,” he told Courier Sport.
“As long as we’re winning and the team’s scoring goals, it doesn’t really matter who scores the goals.
“It doesn’t bother me, or Mark (Stewart) or Christian (Nade).
“I can understand that it’s obviously the striker’s job to score but the fact everybody is contributing is the main thing.
“Of course I’m desperate to get my first league goal this season but as long as I keep setting up goals or contributing in the team I’ll be happy.
“And I feel as if I have done in the last few games.
“We’re just taking it one game at a time and we never look too far ahead.
“It’s another big game on Saturday and we’ve got to go there and try to take three points again.
“After three wins in a row, confidence is obviously high but we’ve never had an easy game when we’ve gone to Alloa.
“We’ve drawn with them at home but we’re hoping we can continue our good run of form and keep it going towards the end of the season.”
Rovers ended up hanging on to their latest victory last weekend as Dumbarton rallied from 2-0 down in the second half, but Elliot is taking the positives from their first half performance.
And he added: “The first half on Saturday against Dumbarton was probably the best we’ve played.
“We brought pressure on ourselves in the second half but the important thing was to get the three points.
“Everybody wanted to continue on the first half performance, but it was good to continue the run of form and grind it out at the end.
“We’ve got to show both sides of the game, defending well and going forward well, but we’re under no illusions.
“We have got to work hard in every game to get a result and I thought we did that in the first half last week.
“We probably invited pressure on ourselves, but getting the three points was the main thing.”
The last time Raith won four league games in a row was at the start of the 2010/11 season, but that is the prospect they are facing if they can record a win over Alloa this afternoon.
Rovers’ recent revival has taken them to within four points of fifth-placed Falkirk with a game in hand, and a place in the top four is not entirely outwith the realms of possibility.
But Elliot added: “If we get three points against Alloa then who knows what could happen, but we’re not looking too far ahead.
“It was always going to be difficult to get into the top four with some of the fixtures that we’ve got, but we’ve got to put ourselves in the position where we’ve got to start taking points off the bigger teams as well.
“We’ve got good players in the squad who can do that.”
Rovers should have a full squad to choose from today, although Laurie Ellis is a slight injury doubt.
Goalkeeper Davie McGurn can also go equal third on the list of the club’s all time goalkeepers in terms of appearances if he plays at the Indodrill today.
McGurn, who will make his 227th appearance, will draw level on the list with Jimmy Brown, although he will still be some way off the great Murray McDermott and Bobby Reid.