Reaction

This will be a game which will be easily forgotten as neither team did themselves justice in front of goals, as a spectacle it did nothing for the game of football.

This was never going to be an easy game for “The Wasps” against Arbroath who themselves have aspirations of clinching a play-off spot having been promoted last season as Division Two Champions and their manager Dick Campbell recently picking up the SPFL Ladbrokes Division One “Manager of the month” award for January, 2018.

However “The Wasps” went into the game missing some key players, Jamie McCart & Ross Stewart picked up injuries while with their parent clubs in midweek, Stevie Hetherington was suspended and Kevin Cawley was attending a funeral in Donegal.

It was a game of very few chances but “The Wasps” did come closest to scoring when Kris Renton rose to meet Iain Flannigan’s cross only to see his header come back off the woodwork. This was the nearest either side came to breaking the deadlock in a game the ball was in the air more than on the deck.

Things might have been worse for “The Wasps” when after 67 minutes young striker Callum Smith making his first start since joining on loan from Dunfermline Athletic was harshly given a straight red card which might have merited a yellow but a red card seemed severe.

So down to ten men for the last twenty five minutes we really defended solidly but it was a game neither team were nowhere as good as they can be in a poor game.

jim goodwin at gayfield

We were missing some key players today, four from the starting eleven from last week – Jamie McCart & Ross Stewart through injury, Stevie Hetherington through suspension and Kevin Cawley who was attending a funeral in Donegal, but the boys that came in done great, I’m really proud of their effort and commitment the players put in, but the game as far as a spectacle goes, I thought the game was terrible. I don’t think we could take many positives from going forward the conditions didn’t allow that, bobbly pitch, the ball spend more time in the air than it did on the deck so from that point of view it wasn’t a great game but plenty of positives we can take from it – a clean sheet obviously, the way that the players defended, how resilient we were, the togetherness particularly when we went down to ten men. Very harshly I felt as well, knowing Callum for as long as I have he is not a nasty player, he is not a dirty player, I think it was just the case of the ball getting away from him, I fully expected the referee to book him because it was a mistimed tackle but I don’t think it was overly dangerous, I don’t think it was malicious and that’s one we will look out and see if we can get some footage from the game and see if there is any case for an appeal.

You only tend to get one camera at the game so it depends how many bodies are in the way but I thought the referee on that occasion wouldn’t see it as a red card , I thought a yellow card would have been fair, their bench and players said the same, there wasn’t really a bad tackle in the game it wasn’t that type of game, Callum had the ball under control at one point and it got toed away from him and he has just lunged to make the tackle, so we were disappointed with that and hopefully we will see because of our players missing today we can’t afford to be missing Callum two games through suspension. If we can appeal it and there are grounds for it, we will, if not what can we do?

There was not a lot of chances in the game which I think goes back to the fact it wasn’t a great game of football, I don’t think there will be too many fans will remember this game in a great light , conditions didn’t allow it and the best opportunity was when Kris Renton headed a great ball in from “Flanny” a good header of the bar and they probably had an opportunity at the end of the game when we were down to ten men and Ryan Wallace had the final chance of the game but for both teams probably a draw was a fair result. Really pleased with another clean sheet our defensive record has been excellent this season and hopefully now we can add a bit of quality in our forward play in the coming weeks and score some goals as well and get these wins which we need.