ARTHURLIE manager Andy McFadyen believes the best is yet to come from his team after they made it 19 wins in a row.

The Barrhead club secured their place in the second round of the West of Scotland Football League Cup by defeating visitors Glasgow United 1-0 on Saturday.

Andrew McLaughlin scored a late winner, although McFadyen admits it wasn’t their best performance of the season.

He told Barrhead Sport: “I’ll give credit to Glasgow United, as they made it difficult.

“I said to the lads that you can play well but still lose. We haven’t been at our best in the last two games but we’ve still managed to get the results.

“We want to get back to the form that we had prior to Christmas. We’re getting there but it’s going to take time.

“The more we keep playing, then we’re going to get back to the form that we had. All good teams go through wee patches like this and we’ll just need to keep working and roll our sleeves up.”

Arthurlie were under pressure in the first half, with the best chances falling to the visitors, who hit the bar and had another effort cleared off the line.

Tam McGaughey struck the woodwork at the other end in what was the home team’s best opportunity in the opening half.

Arthurlie looked to up the tempo after the break and got their reward on 83 minutes as McLaughlin’s strike was deflected past the United goalkeeper and into the net.

Nad Zeb and Gary Smith missed opportunities to make the scoreline more comfortable but McFadyen was happy to take some positives from the game.

Among them was the return of Conor Bradley after a long spell out through injury.

McFadyen is looking forward to watching the defender’s progress now he is back in the fold.

“It was brilliant to see Conor back and the round of applause he got from everyone in the stadium was fantastic,” he said.

“He has missed a lot of football but, on Saturday, he got his ten minutes on the park and hopefully he can return to the form he showed last year and at the beginning of this season.”

Arthurlie are back at Dunterlie Park this Saturday as they host Saltcoats Victoria in Conference A of the West of Scotland Football League, with kick-off at 1.30pm.