Elgin City manager Allan Hale says the Borough Briggs club’s big Scottish cup match against Aberdeen isn’t being talked about in his camp with all focus on Saturday’s William Hill League 2 visit to Forfar Athletic

Elgin City’s huge Scottish Cup clash with Aberdeen may be only 11 days away but it isn’t being spoken about in the Black and Whites’ camp.

The fourth round tie is set to be a Borough Briggs sell-out on Saturday, January 18 with tickets going on general sale last week and being snapped up fast.

So while the big match is becoming the talk of the town, Elgin manager Allan Hale says it hasn’t entered the conversation within his squad yet.

“To be honest it's not something that we spoken about between the staff and the players, apart from allocations of tickets and things like that,” Hale said.

“The games have been so thick-and-fast as well and preparation from week-to-week has always been pretty strenuous anyway, so there's been no distraction at all.

“You can see that in the performances as well from our players that there hasn't been a distraction and we've got a really difficult away tie this week (at Forfar Athletic) and a really difficult venue and that'll be the focus this week.

“Once that's by then we can obviously focus on the game ahead next week against Aberdeen.”

The Dons themselves are in need of a morale boost after going ten Premiership matches without a win, including five straight defeats.

Like Elgin, injuries have racked up at the Pittodrie club and they have two tough matches at home to Hearts on Sunday and away to Rangers the following Wednesday, before making the trip to Borough Briggs.

City visit a Forfar side now managed by former Black and Whites boss Jim Weir, assisted by another ex-Elgin manager in Gavin Price with the pair tasked with trying to steer the Loons away from the foot of League 2.

With Forfar playing on a 4G surface at Station Park, Saturday’s fixture has a good chance of beating the weather.

“You don't want to go through two or three weeks without playing and especially you don't want your momentum to be broken up either,” Hale added.

“I guess what it’s allowed is an extra week for the players to recover if you like but there's no players going to be back by this weekend so it's just they'll get one more game into them with the Spartans game being off.

“We expect a difficult game. We know all about Forfar and their strengths and what they possess so it'll be difficult but it's a game that we're looking forward to.

“Hopefully the game will be on and the forecast subsides a wee bit and we can get some football.”