Reaction

Alloa Athletic’s interest in this season’s CIS Cup ended after Premier League side Aberdeen defeated the 10 man Alloa side after goalkeeper Stephen Robertson was red carded for challenge against Fraser Fyvie after a short pass back from Billy Gibson as early as the 14th minute of the game. In some peoples eyes unfortunately the game then ended as a contest, but to the home support and players they were still to enjoy many asspects of the game. The Alloa players showed great attitude to play positive football when teams in the past might have went for damage limitation. Aberdeen did increase their advantage before half time when Rory McArdle bundled home, however their third goal from sponsors Man of the Match – Chris Maguire was a wonderful strike. Alloa battled well and ended the game creating good chances, Stuart Noble creating but unfortunately not scoring at least a consolation goal which his play merited. The Wasps now need to look forward to another though game on Saturday when they returned to League business at Glebe Park against Brechin City who progressed to the 3rd Round of the CIS Cup after defeating Dundee 3-1 on penalties after the game had ended 2-2.

allan maitland after cup exit

We obviously came tonight with a game plan and we knew how the game was going to pan out, in the first 20 minutes I thought we did fine, but mistakes at this level will kill us and that is exactly what happened, when they scored their goal to go 1-0 up and we are down to 10 men if someone had said at that stage it will finish 3-0 I think in fairness we would probably have taken that and we have came out of the game with a bit of pride, in fact it was a good night – we now need to focus on Saturday, good luck to Aberdeen I hope they do well. We have had a wonderful start to the season, it was always going to be a hard game the team were excellent and I could not have asked for anymore.
Asked about the pitch and the injuries – The second one is an injury and nothing to do with the park, David Gormley has caught Zander Diamond, I didn’t really see what happened to Fraser Fyvie, it was right in front of us, but when he was coming off I thought he might have been wearing blades, and I think blades are foolish on this surface, I think anybody would tell you that, but I don’t know, I don’t even know how serious the injury is and I think they don’t think its as serious first thought and he has had knocks in the past and maybe he is a bit sensitive about it – if there is injuries due to the park that is unusual. On the sending off, in fairness to Stephen Robertson, he said Allan I stayed up as long as I could and Fraser Fyvie just knocked it bye me and couldn’t get there and ran into me, but from where I am it looked like a penalty so I have no problem with the decision, I thought the referee and officials were great.

mark mcghee – aberdeen manager

The result has come at a price, obviously what we are concerned about is that we have lost two players and we do not know the cost of that – I don’t know that it is worth it. I thought it was a reasonable enough performance in difficult conditions – it is a difficult pitch for us and the players have dealt with it fairly well. We are unsure how bad Fraser Fyvie’s injury is until we have a look at him or scan him in the morning, he certainly looked in agony but I think it is the pitch. A lot of these pitches have been built across the country for teams to play and train on but I think at this level the competitiveness of it and the pace that we are trying to play and move at it does make it a little bit more difficult and I think there could be a case for much more specialist footwear – I don’t know how scientific they are about the footwear they wear – they look as if they are wearing rubbers and the moulds the same as our boys but I think there has to be a bit of thought about that because clearly there are peoples feet sticking and players getting injuries. I was worried about the surface – Peter Pawlett went out in the warm up and felt it right away, the surface affected him before he got going and that is why he wasn’t involved. Fraser Fyvie seemed to twist his knee, but we will need to see how it is in the morning, get the experts to check him but the boy seemed to be badly hurt. I think Zander should have got rid of the ball earlier but I think he kind of kicked into the ground, again – there’s no give in it is there? His foot stuck and his knee rocked and he is feeling it on the inside of his ligament – hopefully again that will settle down but again I think the pitch was partly responsible. Up to that point I thought he was brilliant, he was getting on with it and looked the brightest of all of them and I was gutted for him – he has been desperate for his chance, he had a great pre-season and he has not been in the team simply because we have needed a balance – needed Pawlett in there – Fraser got his chance tonight and was taking it before the injury.