East Kilbride boss Stevie Aitken hopes his struggling side can get their Lowland League title hopes back on track with a win over Rangers B on Sunday.
Kilby have made their worst-ever start to a campaign with just two points from their opening three games and the pre-season title favourites already trail league leaders Dalbeattie Star by 13 points, having played two games fewer.
After a shock 1-0 defeat at home to Civil Service Strollers on Saturday, Aitken's task doesn't get any easier when they travel to the CG Stadium on Sunday to face the in-form Rangers side, who have won three of their opening four matches and have just signed midfielder Charlie McCann from Manchester United.
Aitken told Lanarkshire Live Sport yesterday nobody at K-Park is panicking yet amid a host of injuries hitting the squad.
But looking ahead to their next outing, he knows they must start picking up wins.
He said: "We can't kid ourselves on, we need to start getting points on the board, starting at Rangers.
"There's a lot of points available and there will be twists and turns throughout the season, but we need to get the show on the road.
"We'll go to Rangers, hopefully with more players back, and that will take the burden off some of the guys up the top end of the park.
"We'll prepare right. We've had Rangers watched, we'll have a game plan and hopefully it can kick-start our season.
"They've had three wins and one defeat so they've started well.
"Like the Celtic game, they'll have a lot of good young kids.
"But at the end of the day, we are still confident we'll be there at the end of the season.
"We know it's not been good enough so far, but I don't think we are far from turning it around and one result can do that."
This week will be the first chance for EK to get training sessions in, following a run of midweek games in the Premier Sports Cup and a 1-1 draw with Caledonian Braves last Tuesday.
EK's only other point so far came in their last-gasp 1-1 draw with Celtic B in their opening game and Aitken added: "This week gives us a full weeks' training and we've not had that since pre-season.
"It's amazing that we haven't trained on a Tuesday for five weeks, so we will get back working on things.
"We are not making excuses, we've still got a good squad of players for this season, but we are just not firing yet.
"We'll work on that this week and hopefully we get a few players back to give us a better chance."
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