Reaction

Manager Allan Maitland was very proud of his team after their Homecoming Scotland Scottish Cup tie against Premier League opponents Aberdeen at Recreation Park in front of a sell out crowd of 3,013. This was a game “The Wasps” did not deserve to lose, apart from the opening twenty minutes in which time Aberdeen took the lead, but the goal, a shot from Chris Maguire took a huge deflection of Lee Miller who has been recently named Clydesdale Bank Premier League Player of the month for December, 2008 to give “The Dons” a fortune lead. Alloa equalised three minutes before half time, Dougie Hill had put the ball in the net, but referee Steven Nicholls had already blown for a penalty which Andy Scott converted. Alloa restricted Aberdeen to only two opportunities in the 90 minutes, one which Darren Mackie cracked off the bar and the other when Sone Aluko nipped in to score the winner. Alloa had a lot of the game played really really well, showed great energy, pinned Aberdeen back for long spells of the game but did not have a killer instinct in front of goal. In the 5th round Aberdeen have been given a home tie against East Fife.

allan maitland after aberdeen deny alloa 5th round appearance

I’m very proud of the team, but obviously disappointed to lose the game, I felt in the 90 minutes of the game, Aberdeen hit the bar in the second half when they created a really good chance, but Aberdeen didn’t create much in the 90 minutes and we had a lot of the ball, I’m not saying we should have won it, but I don’t think we deserved to lose. In the second half the goal was just a long kick up the pack which Aberdeen won the flick on and it was a great finish but that was maybe the difference. We had a lot of opportunities in the second half when we one on one and the final pass wasn’t just right because we had no clear cut opportunities and I’m talking about our goalkeeper not having made a save Jamie Langfield didn’t have a save to make either but the effort was magnificent and I thought we played really well, we obviously had a plan today to set up against Aberdeen – trying to keep close to Mark Kerr and Sone Aluko and try and stop them playing and I think that worked really well for us, but we still got beat!
That is still a problem, great effort, fantastic effort, played really well, showed they can compete against Aberdeen , we can’t beat them yet cause we are still not at that stage, we lack a cutting edge to our game but I’m proud of the players, proud of the effort everybody’s put in and it was one terrible day out there. Its been a great day for Alloa Athletic Football Club, we would like to have won it but it wasn’t to be, all you can ask your players to do is give you everything they have on a Saturday afternoon and we give that every Saturday we won’t be far away, I’m pleased with the effort and everything else, disappointed to lose.
For the penalty there was no doubt it was a penalty because our player had been pulled back and in fairness the referee had blown before we put the ball in the net. I thought a couple of times later we didn’t get the advantage when the referee stopped the game but the referee had a hard task and he did well. Aberdeen have had their complaints about the park but in a day like today could you imagine playing at the old Ochilview or old Recs, my God, our parks fantastic for the weather so it was a great game of football for us, we would like to have won it for the supporters but it was not to be. The suggestion that Aberdeen should have had a man sent off at the penalty incident was unfounded, I don’t like to see anybody sent off and I didn’t think it was a sending off, it was like the situation at corner kicks or free kicks when someone is pulling but didn’t merit a last man sending off , no I thought the referee was fine, but I would have liked him to give us a second penalty , it might have been the only way we were going to score! I thought we had a lot of possession in the second half, breaking away and getting possession on the edge of the box but just didn’t have the final cutting pass or a presence in the box. You know you are always going to get one chance and our one chance came with five minutes to go when Andy Ferguson was at the back post and he saw it too late and headed past the post, you can only give your best and unfortunately that was our best and it wasn’t good enough, but a great effort and I’m proud of them.