Reaction

Saturday at Stair Park was the proverbial game of two halves, Stranraer having the bulk of the play in the first half, ending with them scoring what proved to be the only goal of the game with a purely speculative effort. In the second half it was “The Wasps” turn to take control of the game after a very poor showing in the opening 45 minutes. This was a big game for both club’s sitting so close to each other in the league standings, an opportunity missed by “The Wasps” given all their possession in the second half they could not find a break in front of goal. Indeed when they did eventually find the net the goal was disallowed.

Although having the lion’s share of possession in the second half, the home side were content to see out the game with their keeper being named “Man of the match”. However three goals in our last six games shows we need to be scoring more goals if we can expect to win matches, which hopefully we can start on Tuesday evening.

Weather permitting we return to action on Tuesday evening when we are due to face Airdrieonians at Excelsior Stadium in Airdrie, Kick-Off 7.45pm. Referee – Barry Cook.

jim goodwin after 1-0 defeat at stair park

We lost the game in the first half it is simple as that, we pinned them back in the second half threw everything at them, but I think we could still be playing there for another hour and nothing would drop. We had a goal chalked off for offside, I can’t quite understand it, a shout for a penalty a blatant hand ball in the box but it just wasn’t our day, and we had plenty of opportunities in the second half but conceded a poor goal in the first half, we should not have conceded that goal, at worst we should be going down the road today with a 0-0 scoreline. Neil Parry has had very little to do all afternoon and to concede that goal the way we did is really disappointing to be honest with you, for as well as we have played and defended up till now and I thought we were defending well at the period we lost today’s goal, but the boy shouldn’t be able to score from there, we will watch it back but bitterly disappointed.

The second half we changed the shape, we went two up and then we went three up and we threw everything at them but nothing would fall for us in and around the box, we had a number of opportunities but we just couldn’t get a goal to get us back in the game because I felt if we had got the equaliser we would have went on to win the game but Stranraer were time wasting from about half an hour to go, it was embarrassing I don’t know how the referee didn’t add on about eight or nine minutes at the end, it was so frustrating from our point of view – there was one team looking to go and win the game and another just hanging on by a thread.

It was a big game, it was an opportunity for us to create a big gap between us and Stranraer, albeit we still have two games in hand to them, and it was a missed opportunity – up front at the moment we are just not doing enough to get the goals that we vitally need. At their goal the guy does a couple of step overs but he really didn’t do anything to beat anyone, I don’t think we got close enough when he hits it and Neil will be disappointed getting beaten at his near post, but the big man has been excellent, he is the best goalkeeper in the league but we got punished today. It was also a bad time right on stroke of half-time, if we had got in at half-time, having played as badly as we had in the first half, I would have been pleased.

The second half I can’t fault the players effort, they did absolutely everything they could to try and unlock their defence, we just couldn’t in the end, we just lacked that wee bit of something to get us back in the game. We now have a game on Tuesday night against Airdrieonians so it will be important to try and freshen things up, we have big games coming up with Tuesday / Saturday / Tuesday now, three huge games and hopefully we can get back to winning ways.