After Ayr United Game

Allan Maitland after Ayr United game

I think it is quite simple at 45 minutes Ayr United were miles better than us, they were first to every ball scored two good goals and I thought we should have defended them better but it was two good goals from their point of view and I said in my programme notes that they had two good strikers and that is what proved to be. We were second best to everything in the first half but in the second half I though we played much better but it is easier to play better when you are two goals down and the other team are sitting in and I think that is what happened, Ayr United took their foot of the pedal a bit and having got ourselves into good positions we should have done better, I think the chances we missed were at the very worst as easy as the ones scored by Ayr United so it has been a bad day but at least we showed a bit of effort in the second half and we now need to get ourselves re-grouped and re-organised for Tuesday nights game against Clyde. We need to do much better than we have managed so far – we’ve now played four games and haven’t scored a first half goal which tells me we are not starting games sharp enough and I think that sums it up quite well. We are not defending properly – we played Dundee here and won 2-1 and the victory was built on the fact we defended well. Today we did not defend well, we lost two first half goals and it could have been more because we didn’t get tight to people we have not got close enough in the middle of the park allowing them to pick their passes that did not happen against Dundee but it’s happened now some players are feeling sorry for themselves and if they are not careful they will not need to feel sorry for themselves because they will not be playing if they don’t improve. After the game the players were having a go at each other and they were obviously disappointed and they do not need me to have a go at them but I did mention to them that we need to start the game better and defend better but we will get better. On the injury front, Chris Townsley took a knock so I will need to see how he is for Tuesday. I was pleased Iain Campbell played after his recent bereavement but we will need to see how his knee held up. Brown Ferguson and Dougie Wilson may be another couple of week yet and the same applies to Andy Ferguson, David McClune is hard to assess at this stage but he will be at least another two weeks.