Raith Rovers: Boss Ian Murray keen to crank up pressure on play-off rivals with win over Ayr United

Sixth-placed Rovers, the division’s form team who are unbeaten in 13 league and cup fixtures, are on 34 points from 25 games. This puts them five points adrift of third-placed Ayr - the last team to beat Raith in a 2-0 result at Somerset Park on December 3 – having played one match more.

"To go 13 games in a row undefeated for us is a fantastic achievement,” Murray told the Fife Free Press. "It kind of doesn’t mean much because we want to extend that to make it 14 and we want to put three points on the board.

"We’re at that stage of the season where we can put pressure on teams. My biggest thing is we can go two points behind Ayr if we win.

"Obviously they have a game in hand but that gives us an opportunity going into the last quarter.

"I’ve always maintained if we can be in touching distance in the last quarter then who knows where we can end up? It’s that tight.

“We beat Ayr at home earlier on in the season (3-2 on September 17) and they beat us down at their place.

"Both games were actually really, really tight. We probably shaded it at Stark’s Park and they probably shaded it down at Somerset.

"We should expect a really good, tight and competitive game.

"Obviously we’ve been on a decent run. We would love to win on Friday night just to close gaps but we know we’ll need to play very well to do that because Ayr are obviously dangerous, they’ve shown that throughout the season.”

Murray’s men’s recent run of 13 fixtures unbeaten has also included six league draws, prompting suggestions that their position in Scotland’s second tier could be an even stronger one.

The Stark’s Park boss added: "I think there’s a few games we should have won but there’s a couple in there we would take a point, so it’s a mixed bag.

"You always look at draws in different ways. Friday night’s draw (1-1 at Queen’s Park) I’m very happy with.

"I was very happy with Dundee at home (1-1 on January 6) but I wasn’t so happy with the Arbroath draw at home (1-1 on December 17), or the Morton draw at home when we were 2-0 up (2-2 on December 23).