Airdrieonians picked up their first win of the season at Arbroath’s expense on Saturday, as the Diamonds kicked off life after Danny Lennon in positive fashion at the Albert Bartlett Stadium.
An early penalty from Euan Henderson secured a 1-0 win for the hosts as they moved to within three points of Queen’s Park at the bottom of the Championship table.
There was just one change to the side that defeated league leaders St Johnstone last week, as David Gold dropped out altogether, with Taylor Steven returning to the lineup. Dapo Mebude was on the bench, looking for his first appearance after joining at the start of the week.
The Lichties made a bright start in North Lanarkshire with a couple of quickfire chances. Taylor Steven first went close with a shot that was deflected behind for a corner, with that set-piece finding the head of Jack Wilkie who nodded narrowly wide.
It was Airdrie who opened the scoring however, Henderson finding the net on 14 minutes. The striker had been picked out by a long ball and has his heels clipped in the area by Scott Stewart, before stepping up to coolly dispatch the spot kick.
They should have had a second soon after when Chris Mochrie danced through the Lichties defence before getting a shot away, but Aidan McAdams was able to block his goal bound effort.
Arbroath almost found an equaliser just ten minutes after the restart when Ryan Dow slipped the ball to Wilkie who picked out Steven in the middle, with the St Johnstone loanee turning his effort against the crossbar.
Dow had an even better chance to bring the visitors level just past the hour mark, when he reacted quickest to a loose ball in the box, but he managed to slice his close-range attempt over the bar.
The Lichties did press for an equaliser in the remaining half an hour, but in truth, failed to really trouble Matty Connelly in goal as they slipped to just a fourth defeat of the campaign.
Airdrieonians: Connelly; McKinnon, Wilson, McGinty, Strapp; McMaster; Telfer (Cooper, 74), Gallagher (Reid, 58), Barjonas; Mochrie (Hastie, 82), Henderson (Xavier-Jones, 82)
Arbroath: McAdams; Stewart, Muirhead (Kabongolo, 67), O’Brien, Wilkie; MacIntyre, Marshall, Flynn; Steven (Cochrane, 68), Reilly (Todorov, 74), Dow (Mebude, 81)
Attendance: 1328
