Gus MacPherson has revealed that Queens Park’s pre-season preparations have been disrupted this year – by his players’ work commitments and holiday plans.

“In this early part of the season you’re going to come up against some difficulties,” he said.

“Players are still really in their pre-season, and ours has been a little bit disrupted because of holidays and work commitments which players at our level obviously have.

“It’s just something you’ve got to accept. In the past 16 months we’ve had to learn that side of it and what you’ve got to make sure is that you respect these guys, because they’re giving up quite a bit of their time to play for you.

“There’s a financial aspect as well, they give up the opportunity to go elsewhere and some of the junior clubs can pay big money.

“So we’re respectful of these players and what they commit to in terms of their training, game-time, travel and everything else that goes with it.

“You’ve got to take all of that into consideration when you see players going out to perform, and what we’ve certainly seen in the past 12 months is that players might have bad games and you might get a little bit of inconsistency, but you cannot fault their effort and that’s the most important thing.”

The League Two side returned to competitive action with a penalty shootout victory over Edinburgh City in the Petrofac Cup last weekend, and McPherson hopes the tough workout will set them in good stead for the challenge of League One Forfar in tomorrow’s League Cup tie at Hampden.

“It was always going to be a bit of a banana skin,” he said.

“Edinburgh City have done well in the last few years, comfortably winning the Lowland League last year, so we had to be very respectful to them.

“It proved a difficult one, but we weren’t surprised by that, and we’re just grateful to be in the next round.

“The players also played 120 minutes, which is not ideal at this time of the season, but hopefully they’ll get a fitness benefit from that as well.”

Looking ahead to the challenge they face against Dick Campbell’s Forfar, he added: “With Forfar being in a higher league you’d certainly say that it will be a tougher game.

“Forfar have had an excellent last couple of seasons. They’ve got an experienced manager who knows his way around the block.

“He’s certainly recruited very well in the last couple of years, bringing in players like Gavin Swankie, [Chris] Templeman and [Kevin] Nicoll in the middle of the park, so they’ve got experience in every area of the park.

“People maybe raised eyebrows when he brought in somebody like Rab Douglas, but he was outstanding last season for Forfar.

“You get that from the experience of Dick Campbell, knowing the types of players that you need for a certain level of football, and he’s certainly done that in the last couple of seasons at Forfar.

“So we know it’s going to be a tough game, and a lot of their players will have played at Hampden, so it’s not an away trip that will make them nervous in terms of the surroundings.

“But because of the season we had last year, they’ll be very respectful towards us.”