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Saturday saw the Warriors fall to their third consecutive 2-1
defeat against league leaders Berwick Rangers. Whilst being less than happy with
another lost game Campbell remained positive regarding recent overall
performances. “As long as we continue to concede avoidable goals with sloppy
play then we'll struggle to take anything from games in this division. Having
said that, I've been relatively pleased with our overall performances in recent
weeks with many positive signs in our play; I feel that we've controlled the
bulk of the play in the last two games but, frustratingly, taken nothing in
terms of points. The two major issues we face are our defensive lapses and our
inability to score from the opportunities we create - hardly rocket science I
know but we do need to concentrate more defensively and have that bit of luck in
front of goal.”
As in our last performance against Berwick at Ochilview, our defensive frailties
cost us dear. “We took too long to organise ourselves at the free-kick that led
to their first and failed to pick up either of their strikers allowing Wood a
free header which ricocheted off Mark Cowan right into the path of an unmarked
Iain Diack. We simply need to improve on our organisation and concentrate fully
for 90 minutes. The second goal saw us playing too many short passes ultimately
leading a bad bounce beating Scott McCulloch, again we need to learn when to go
longer and also need more movement from players willing to take a pass.”
Money made full use of his allowed substitutions with Gareth Hutchison, Scott
McManus and Tommy Sinclair replacing John Paul McBride, Kevin McLeish and Paul
Tyrell. “I brought Gareth on to give us more options from midfield going forward
and encouraged him to get into the box as much as possible. This nearly paid off
on a couple of occasions and he was unfortunate not to score with a header.
Scott gave us another striker as we tried to take something from the game and
Tommy gave us more width on the right hand side. I also moved Mark Cowan upfront
in the latter stages of the game to win a few headers and pose a different
threat to their defence.”
“In general terms I felt that we did get the ball into dangerous areas but we do
need a win to give everyone at the club a much needed boost, three 2-1 defeats
are obviously disappointing and make our chances of a play-off place even more
challenging.”
Campbell also took the opportunity to blood some youngsters for the trip to
Berwick with U19 youth players Robert Love and Gary Thom (U19's) along with U17
Sean Cryans making the squad and obviously benefiting from the experience of the
trip.
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Saturday sees us up against Montrose seeking to maintain our
100% record this season against the Angus club. Our previous game at Ochilview
back in August saw us take all three points with a resounding 5-0 victory and
everyone at the club would be delighted if there was a similar result on
Saturday. Campbell realises that this will be another difficult encounter. “This
game will be a different challenge from recent weeks, Montrose are at the wrong
end of the table but they have a new manager who will no doubt have stiffened
their resolve and he'll be looking to make it difficult for us. I saw them lose
heavily against Queens Park but since then they've drawn with East Fife, beaten
The Shire and lost narrowly to Berwick/Elgin so they've shown some improvement
in recent weeks.”
On the selection front Robbie Henderson again misses out with a back injury
whilst Brian McLaughlin is rated 50/50 but will be given every chance to prove
his fitness on Saturday morning. We have no suspensions and Gordon Connelly
continues to make steady progress after his recent operation.
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