The Diamonds welcome East Kilbride for the first ever league meeting between the clubs this weekend – and Dylan MacDonald wants victory over his old side.

Both of the previous competitive clashes with Mick Kennedy’s side came in cup competitions in the 2024/25 season, and both were at the Albert Bartlett Stadium.

The results were vastly different, with a rampant Airdrie winning July’s Premier Sports Cup tie 8-0 before an injury-hit Diamonds side could only manage a 1-1 draw in the SPFL Trust Trophy in October, with East Kilbride going on to win on penalties.

Defender MacDonald featured in both matches having moved across Lanarkshire that summer, and is ready to face his old club again having made his first start of the season in last weekend’s League 1 opener.

Returning from injury to help his side to a clean sheet in the 0-0 draw at Cove Rangers, he admits that there’s room for improvement.

“We’ve analysed the game – there’s been positives and negatives, but we’ve gone over them, we’ll try to fix them and hopefully we can take them into the game on Saturday.

“I thought the boys were excellent in defence. We did what we had to and obviously got the clean sheet, it was just disappointing not to come away with three points.”

Having had a rough ride with injuries over the last two seasons, MacDonald has fully recovered from an ankle injury sustained in the final minute of the final match of the regular league season – and hopes his latest comeback will be a lasting one.

“It’s been disappointing not to be playing but I’m feeling a lot better and came back stronger, so I’m looking forward to hopefully keeping playing and staying fit.

“It’s been so frustrating, even last season it was too start/stop for me, and that’s just not me! Hopefully I can get a good run of games under my belt.”

Having spent a lot of time watching from the sidelines as Airdrie were relegated to League 1 at the end of last season, MacDonald has now welcomed a new squad and management team to the club as he aims to help fire the Diamonds straight back to the Championship.

As one of the few remaining players, he’s helping to make sure that the new recruits know what’s expected of them.

“There’s been a lot of new faces, and you just need to tell them what it’s like here and what the standards are.

“That’s what we need to do, drive the standards and make sure they’re on board with that – and they have been so far.”

And with the opening home fixture on the horizon, Dylan is hopeful of getting one over on newly-promoted East Kilbride, who got off to a flyer with a 5-1 win over Queen of the South last Saturday.

“They’ll be a good side, as they probably proved at the weekend – but I think it’s about us and what we do.

“We’ve got the home advantage, so as long as we play our game hopefully we can take it to them and get three points to get us off to a good start at home.

“I think it’ll be and end-to-end game. I know they like to keep the ball, but so do we and we can switch it up as well.”

Head coach John Rankin knows that every game will present a tough task for his new-look squad, but says that spirits are high in the Diamonds dressing room.

“When you look at East Kilbride’s results throughout pre-season, they’ve had some really good results and really good performances. They beat Dunfermline, took St Mirren all the way, and obviously beat Queen of the South 5-1 at the weekend.

“They’ll be full of confidence coming here and looking to continue their momentum. They play lots of good football, they’re well organised as you’d expect with Mick and Si’s teams, so we’ll welcome them here and get ready to go.

“It’ll be a difficult task for us, we know that, but the players are motivated after Saturday off the back of a good clean sheet – we need to build on that, and hopefully get three points from the game.”

Mason Chisholm, Cole McKinnon and Zac Butterworth continue to miss out for the Diamonds, who otherwise have a clean bill of health ahead of the match.

Grant Irvine is in charge of his first Airdrie match of the current campaign – but the whistler was a familiar face last season, refereeing seven matches involving the Diamonds.

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