Queens Park 0-1 Airdrie United

By Snedved 1924
November 5 2007

Queens Park 0-1 Airdrie

The Team

Goalkeeper - Robbo was solid, and did well when called upon. He made a number of reasonably easy saves, and commanded his box well, and recovered a poor defensive error by James Sharp early on in the game. He had one great save from a hard and low shot going into the bottom right corner which he got his hand to.

Defenders - Even though Queens Park were all over us, the defence were passable. McKenna was the best in defence, but with no real shape or communication going on, there were several poor moments. We were inconsistant in defence, and Lovering did his usual of making a decent run up the wing, good positioning and then failing to track back as he is too slow. We simply can't afford to do this, as it's letting the opposition in behind us and players were simply not covering for each other.

Midfielders - In a word - shambolic. No shape whatsoever. The worst game I have seen Waddell play, almost every time he went up the wing he lost the ball, or delivered a poor ball. This wasn't entirely his fault as we refused to play a man behind the ball, nobody was covering for each other and there were very few options for players on the ball. McDonald was fairly poor and quiet at times, and McKeown didn't have the drive that was expected. Smith had a couple of good runs, but the midfield was not working as a unit. It wasn't necessarily poor individual performances, but a matter of lack of communication and teamwork. They were all letting each other down.

Fowards - Noble and Russell is probably the best partnership we have up front, but they didn't create as many chances as we all would have hoped. This had a lot to do with a midfield that had a complete off day. It was a very good goal that was well taken by Russell, and the move proved that we can do well in moving up the park. It was probably our best moment as we did not really pressure their defence enough.

Thoughts

Obviously, I'm happy with the win as I'm sure everyone is, it's three points on the table. But it was negative football. We got lucky today and thankfully for us, Queens Park couldn't take advantage of our display. If someone had offered me 1-0 before the game I would have taken it, but other teams will not be afraid of us if we play like that. Great result, and I think the stick that KB has been getting is a bit out of order as I it was not his tactics or decisions that led to that disspointing show. I'm willing to put it down to a bad day at the office, but we really have to get our act together if we are going to win this league.