Management thoughts on a return trip to Raydale

Posted on Friday, September 16th, 2011

Mike says –

“No two games of football are alike. No two games of football against the same team are alike. No two games of football against the same team in the short space of 14 days are alike. Get what I’m saying? I don’t think tomorrow at Raydale we’ll see a very open game with 6 goals in it. The very good home side will be hurting and out to prove they are much better than that 5-1 score-line suggests. To be honest Gretna should have scored first and we had a mad 15 minutes in the first half where everything we hit ended up in the net. No, I think we’ll see a much closer game tomorrow.

Back to two games in a short space of time. When you win by a big margin and field the same team two weeks later you always worry about complacency. Sam and I don’t have that concern tomorrow as Chris Flockhart, Ali MacKinnon and Donal Henretty are all unavailable for various reasons. Jonathan Seeley and Rees Smith wont be on the bus either and Gary Bannon may have to work – “Sectarianism wont eradicate itself” his text said on Thursday as he helps prepare briefings for some justice committee or other. Sam and I also have concerns over Jack Beesley as he came off with a groin problem last Saturday and missed our trip to Airdrie. Jack trained OK last night and there hopefully won’t be a reaction but asking him to play 90 minutes on a big park may cause further problems. The joys of being a football co-manager.

On the plus side Kerr Dodds and Keith McLeod both got 45 minutes under their belts on Monday. Kerr will start tomorrow but we may keep Cloudie in reserve not wanting to rush him back. Our young U19s keeper will play in goal and Danny O’Donnell will come back in at fullback. Cloudie will probably be on the bench and we have to decide whether to go with Jack, Jordan Finnie or Chris Smith in the starting 11. It may just be time to give Jordan a run but Sam, Mike and myself will talk things through later today before deciding.

Gretna will be looking for revenge as they know the last game was much tighter than the 5-1 score-line suggests. We will have to be at our very best to still be in the Image Printers East of Scotland Qualifying Cup come Saturday at 5.00 and that is our aim. It promises to be a cracking game.”

Mike