AIRDRIE UTD

Clyde

With the majestic Alan Gow back in the side, Airdrie quickly took the game by the scruff, Gow immediately to the fore with his flamboyant, graceful link up play making space for Coyle, McLaren and others to exploit. It didn’t take long for Airdrie to move into an early lead. With less than a quarter of an hour on the clock, Mark Roberts found acres of space on the right hand side of Clyde’s six yard box that had been vacated by Gary Bollan to head a McLaren cross goalwards. Halliwell managed to palm the ball away but Coyle reacted first to the rebound to head goalwards for the eighth time on league duty this season.

As if to immediately prove that he isn’t a one-trick pony, Coyle found Mark Roberts, incredibly in exactly the same position again, with a pinpoint cross for the much maligned Roberts to powerfully head past the badly exposed Halliwell. 2-0 up against the league leaders after less than 20 minutes and they’d not even threatened to threaten young Hollis’ goal! Still the wee bullies managed to provide some comic relief by hooking the baldy ex. Ranger, Bollan, almost immediately and boy was he incandescent? Clyde went to a three at the back to try to curb the attacking threat of Airdrie. I’m not too sure if Bollan will be pulling on a Clyde jersey in the near future though after his ‘sub-rage’!

Airdrie were by no means perfect in that first half but the difference in our performance with Gow in the side is blatantly obvious. How much have we missed this guy in the opening quarter of the season? Duffy of Falkirk and Ramon of Partick are a couple of talented strikers, but surely within a handful of starts Gow will clearly show that he can out play these boys. Gow is said to be a tee-total health conscious dedicated young pro and looking at him and 38 years young Coyle mentoring him he’ll surely go very far in the game if he absorbs the advice that the master striker will undoubtedly pass on to him? The defence looked more comfortable with McManus and McGowan in the middle, certainly my preference in central defence, and Lovering at left back. In midfield we looked much more threatening with Roberts, then Vareille, making the ‘near post’ runs that Barkey hadn’t been doing in recent weeks. The main worry for me though is that Hardie and McLaren’s performances once again dipped dramatically after the re-start. The stamina level of these two is worrying me. McLaren is not even 20 years old and can’t play for more than 45 minutes without looking like a 40 year old, 40 a day man! It’s nothing to do with their early season injuries, look at Gow finishing the game strongly, and Coyle is still going strongly for the full 90! On another bright note, Lee Hollis had an almost faultless display in goals.

Second half, as I’d just mentioned, the Airdrieonians dipped a bit allowing Clyde to finally start attacking, though Airdrie remained their own biggest enemy by failing to clear their lines snappily enough. Clyde had a grip of the midfield with the pint sized ‘Jack Russell’ type Sheridan giving Hardie in particular a hard time. It was quite sad at times watching, praying that Hardie would just sink the boot into that wee eejit, but Airdrie seem to have gone soft these days.

Airdrie had the perfect answer to Clyde’s lame fightback attempts as Coyle provided Gow with a subtle through ball to chase. Gow pulled clear of the Clyde defence from almost the half way line and held on strongly to drive an unstoppable shot low past Halliwell. The goal was actually a bit of a surprise coming the way it did with Gow, just back from a nasty injury remember, showing pace, power and precision to mark his return emphatically and send out a signal that he is indeed the real deal.

Substitute Walker did pull a late consolation back for Clyde with a heavily deflected shot that Hollis was powerless to stop but their resistance was futile. Varielle had a couple of chances to increase our lead that were noteworthy. An absolute rocket of a shot was blocked by Halliwell with his abdomen, but in true cartoon style he was lucky it didn’t blast a hole through him instead of just severely winding him. Moments later Vareille tried a spectacular overhead kick that was milliseconds from connecting cleanly. A good day for Sandy Stewart’s side that suggests the season may not be over but it’s only the first step of a revival and a few things still need sorted out, especially some fitness levels!