Defenders like buses for Houston as all return at once

Aaron Muirhead is back in the Falkirk starting line-up but he’s almost immediately under pressure with Lewis Kidd also returning to fitness to challenge for his starting berth.

It’s a positive headache for Peter Houston to have ahead of high-flying Morton’s visit on Saturday after the boss was forced to pitch centre half Paul Watson into the right-back spot against Raith Rovers a fortnight ago.

“It was good to see him [Aaron Muirhead] back,” said the boss. “Lewis Kidd has restarted training again too. Only Nathan Austin has an injury.

“Now that the four centre halves are fully fit, the centre backs who were great on Saturday, I won’t drop them, they drop themselves.

“I have Paul Watson and Peter Grant to come in – that’s strong. That’s what we’ve strived for in the squad.

“Tony Gallacher is not far off challenging Luke Leahy, strongly, at left-back too.”

Though the game ended in a defeat again on Saturday, the Bairns boss was a lot more accepting of the result – but still disappointed – than he was after the loss to Raith Rovers.

“We deserved a draw from the match. We lost a goal from us being in their box.

“I felt if there was one team going to win it would be us. So I felt gutted for the players.

“I was unhappy after Raith Rovers and rightly so. The two centre halves were magnificent on Saturday – the week before looked like it was the first time they’d played together. The Raith defeat and the United defeat – I can handle one of those – but we can’t afford to dip our standards. We need a level of consistency because we were on it against Dunfermline.

“It’s a big game on Saturday with Morton. It’s going to be a tough November, December and we need points on the board.

“There’s only six or seven points between us and the top. The target is the play-offs and we need to start winning again. We need a run that takes us into the points for this quarter, and I’m confident we have a squad here to win matches.”