Struggling Raith Rovers 'still have belief to shock Aberdeen', says skipper Scott Brown
Raith Rovers captain Scott Brown has insisted the struggling Stark’s Parkers have retained the belief to topple holders Aberdeen out of the Scottish Cup this Sunday.
Raith are down in sixth place in the William Hill Championship after failing to win in any of their last four league games and are priced as high as 11-2 with bookmakers to win the fourth round tie in 90 minutes at Pittodrie.
Brown told the Fife Free Press: "Aberdeen will be playing with a bit of fire in their bellies now. They have lost two games back-to-back to Rangers. They also lost their manager this season but Aberdeen have got a lot of quality and we know how tough a game it’s going to be.
"Apart from Rangers or Celtic away and Hearts right now, it’s obviously one of the ones we wanted to avoid. But I look around the dressing room and think that we still have the belief we can maybe caise a shock, even although we’re not having the season we want to have.
"If we didn’t believe that we were going to win then there would be no point in us turning up at Pittodrie on Sunday. It might be a nice break away from the league and we need to be ready to go.
"It’s going to be a tough week’s training and trying to build up a bit of character towards the rest of the season.
"A good performance on Sunday would go a long way towards getting us back into the swing of things I would think.”
On the potential return from injury of key trio Ross Matthews, Shaun Byrne and Lewis Vaughan, Brown added: “It will be a massive boost to have these guys back.
"Whether they’re going to play on Sunday I don’t know. That’s going to be between them and the manager.
“In football it’s never easy losing key players like those three have been over the years.
"But it will be nice to see them back on the pitch. Roscoe’s played a good bit this season but Shauny and Vaughany have struggled for fitness.
“Hopefully they can make the contribution they were making before they were injured.”