Reaction

In a remarkable day for the club and their fans, Alloa Athletic not for the first time this season came back from behind and scored an equaliser at Ibrox, showing great character and more importantly collecting another vital league point which was deserved on the night. Alloa Athletic had already grabbed the headlines earlier in the day after unveiling Michael Chopra as their most recent signing. This was another game Rangers under their new manager Stuart McCall were looking to kick start their season, but “The Wasps” have their own need for points and stunned the home fans by taking the lead early in the second half when Ben Gordon scored with a header. Rangers upped their tempo and two quick fire goals by Nick Clark within five minutes of each other looked to turn the game in the home sides favour, but this Alloa side have shown in the past they can come back from going behind to the Ibrox side. Eight minutes from time Ryan McCord put through a superb pass between two Rangers defenders and into the path of Liam Buchanan who ran on and clipped the ball past the despairing Cammy Bell and into the empty net, no more than “The Wasps” deserved on the night.

paddy connolly at ibrox

Obviously delighted to get a point, for teams like ourselves in the position we are in the table, we knew it was always going to be difficult coming to places like Ibrox, especially with the new management of Stuart McCall & Kenny Black coming in, you always get a reaction when a new manager comes in, especially at a massive club like Rangers. So from our point of view, great to get a point but maybe I’m being a wee bit greedy thinking we could maybe of stole all three, obviously delighted but I said to the players in the dressing room, you gave your lot, but I know our players always give everything, the one thing which has maybe let us down is results, in terms of points on the table, because we have always been in games, it is a great point and hopefully it will lift the spirits of the players, it feels like a victory coming here and getting a point, but I think it would be fair to say, we deserved it. We scored two great goals from our point of view, the first goal is a great header from Ben, if I am honest it is something he should be doing more often this season, he laugh’s as Ben is sitting next to him at time. My plan when we went 2-1 down in quick succession was to bring on a forward, we lost two goals maybe playing a bit deep at times, because we managed to get a goal in front it’s only natural and I was about to change it and go with another striker up top to try and get back in the game and it scuppered my plans when Buck’s equalised and that changed the mentality again. So delighted for the club and the players and we roll on to Saturday now when we will face Raith Rovers. Michael Chopra coming to the club was a no brainer, once I knew it could happen, a player with his Premiership experience and still only 31, I am hoping he can add something to the team and maybe give us these extra points we need to stay in this division. It’s good to move back up the table above Cowdenbeath but they still have a couple of games in hand, but there are massive games ahead, we know it is still in our hands but I don’t want to look further forward than Saturday’s game at Kirkcaldy, so there is a long way to go there are still seven league games to go which means 21 points to play for, so when you are down at our end of the table every point is a prisoner. The Chairman has asked me to take the manager’s position on a caretaker basis but I cannot look any further than Saturday, so at this time I am picking the team on a game to game basis, but our guys are a great bunch who have worked under Paul & Barry, Barry has added to the great work done by Paul, the players give an unconditional work rate no matter who the manger is, me in a short term and that’s great credit to the players.