Forfar. Gretna. East Fife. St. Johnstone. Dunfermline. All teams who have been at least one league below us who have managed to triumph over us in the League Cup or the Scottish Cup since 2004. It's an average of one a season, although we haven't yet had this season's shock to keep the stat up. It would be nice to think the way we dealt with Brechin City in the Scottish Cup last season, and the wins over East Stirling and Ayr United in this season's League Cup, mean those dark days are over, but we've all been following Saints long enough to know that's probably not the case!
With that in mind, we cannot afford to relax and do what many teams would do by resting players and fielding a weakened side. It may be tempting, what with a packed fixture list coming up, but we can struggle with our best team playing, let alone with half of them fit but in the stand. As such, expect to see key players like Billy Mehmet, Craig Dargo, Hugh Murray and Jack Ross all start this one. Andy Dorman is also likely to start even though he's not fully fit, while the only concession could be to see Steven Robb and Allan Johnston in the team in a bid to boost their fitness.
With lots of games in January, it's refreshing to see a relatively slim injury list. Tom Brighton and Chris Smith are the only long term absentees at the moment, while John Potter is likely to only miss a few games with his hamstring problem. Michael Higdon is free from suspension and over a virus, as is Steven Thomson (despite claims his "virus" was actually a managerial bust up), but it seems Mo Camara might have it.
Alloa are doing tremendously in the second division, so much so that Allan Maitland has been named manager of the month - good news for us! Maitland managed to get both Clyde and Hamilton promoted to the first division and on a reasonably steady footing and he looks like repeating the trick with the Wasps. He's arguably the best part-time manager in Scotland and he would probably have had a crack at a full time job by now if he wasn't a sensible chap who does a proper job during the day!
The Alloa defence will feature a very familiar face in the shape of former Buddie Scott Walker. A member of the Millennium Champions team, he was a popular centre half before buying out his contract to sign for Dunfermline in 2002. It looked like he'd be back a year later when he played as a trialist, but instead he signed for Alloa! He's been around a few clubs since then, but he's now back at the Rec and seems to be doing well. Other players to watch out for are Mark Gilhaney, who often scored against us, Brown Ferguson (a great name that gives Jeff Stelling much amusement on Soccer Saturday) and Bryan Carrigan, who was tipped for big things at the start of the last decade but has instead had to make do with scoring hatfuls in the juniors and lower leagues.