Reaction

Alloa continued in their push for promotion with a hard earned 2-0 victory over a Clyde side who seemed to be playing without any pressure and enjoying much of the ball. However in the end, Alloa’s twin strike force of Stuart Noble and Bryan Prunty were to prove their worth to “The Wasps” with each scoring when the opportunites fell for them, Stuart Noble opening the scoring, against the run of play in the first half and Bryan Prunty scoring the crucial second goal five minutes from the end.

allan maitland after victory over clyde

First and foremost you have to say Clyde played with a freedom and expression and passed the ball excellently, really really well, certainly in the first half in particular they were easily the better side, we scored well against the run of play and you can see the reason why they are where they are in the league because the created three great chances and missed the lot of them, the one at the back post when the guy slipped it past the post, the one at the penalty spot when the player got knocked down, these should be goals everyday of the week but then when you look at Bryan Prunty, you look at Stuart Noble there lies the difference, we had three chances in the entire game – the keeper made a great save at the first one, and the other two are great finishes, Prunty’s first touch for the second goal when he headers it across the defender and gets himself one on one with the goalkeeper was magnificent and gave himself the option to go round the keeper or just toe poke it under him, that was the significant difference but all credit needs to go to Clyde tonight, we are what we are – we are a very hard team to defeat which has been borne out with the number of shutouts we have had this season and Davie Crawford has been a big part of that but tonight I thought the guys who did really well for us were Chris Townsley who was immense and Declan McAvoy at left back who did really well for us especially in the second half he dug in against Jordan White who was going to beat him most times in the air but certainly did enough to force him under pressure and made sure on his one opportunity he headed over the bar. We are getting to a stage where we are very close to the end of the season and this team have a chance of achieving something and their desire to do it at the moment is greater than their ability they are showing on the park but they have been fantastic this season and they are determined not to let anything slip, we always say we are hard to beat and with Bryan Prunty and Stuart Noble on the park then we have every chance of winning games. For what it is worth I thought the two centre midfield players of Clyde were excellent, Connor Stevenson and the Latvian boy were spraying the ball about all night, part of that problem for us was Scot Buist was struggling with injury, had to play due to Scott Walker being suspended, so the back four were too deep, created a big space in the middle which made it really difficult for Mark Brown and John Grant or Bomber get close to them and that allowed them to play, full credit to them they played really well and I think 2-0 was a little harsh. But at the moment our need is probably greater than their’s. We picked up three injuries tonight in Scot Buist, David McClune and Andy Scott, Scot Buist looks like being a no for Saturday, David McClune has a possibility. We gave Gary Carroll a rest for most of tonight and Scott Walker will again be available for Saturday, but there is no doubt on Saturday we will need to play better than we did tonight but the same result would be very welcome.