AIRDRIE UTD

Hamilton

I’m not going to linger too much on detail on this one. Airdrie had a lot of first half attacks and only poor finishing and lack of invention from a plethora of corners held us back. Accies went ahead against the run of play with a sloppy looking goal from a corner, McLaughlin using his height well. Airdrie didn’t come out for the second half at all. Was it tiredness after the heavy schedule? No excuse Accies have had the same schedule. Was it the pitch? No excuse Accies players looked just as uncomfy with it too. Were we holding back ahead of Saturday’s cup-tie? It always seemed that way during the 90s, we certainly could do with a wee run this year. Most of Accies dangerous attacks were more of our own doing, we seemed hung up on beating ourselves. We took Hardie out of the side today and lost a lot of our normal midfield boisterousness. The Lovering overlap was missing for most of the match, MacDougall was rarely played in and when he was he was usually taken out. I was impressed with the work of our forwards. McPhee again looked capable of unsettling any side with his unique (at our level anyway) style and he combined well with Prunty. Despite our profligacy in front of goal and seemingly laid back slumbering second half, it must be acknowledged that Accies can at least defend.

It would be amiss to dwell too much on this game. It was disappointing to see such a healthy crowd leave so disappointed after such a good spell but today’s wrongs can certainly be righted on Saturday. We go there with pretty much our strongest side available. I can see us going there with the starting line-up from Saturday in the same formation. I’m sure we were holding back a bit today and the pitch did upset our rythmn. We need our defence to pull itself together again. McKenna’s distribution was off today, McManus had a good few blips and McGowan again looked a pale shadow of the Maddog character we were accustomed to in recent seasons. I’m looking forward to seeing how the four forwards compete at SPL level. MacDougall and McLaren have the pace to cause endless problems if we can play them in right. Much of that will depend on the effectiveness of McPhee dropping off and getting the kids driving into the channels off of the wings. I saw Hearts do that to Celtic a few times on Sunday and their guys didn’t have that kind of pace. We shouldn’t go there with any fear. That is unless they get some corners for Andy Tod to punish us – another reason I think we’ll have Hardie back for!