Shocked Moore blames defence

Apr 15 2009 by Donald Morton, Stirling Observer Wednesday

STIRLING Albion go into Saturday’s home game with high-flying Raith in poor shape after suffering a disas-trous 2-1 defeat to Stranraer at the weekend.

It was the already-relegated club’s first win for six months and leaves Albion five points short of the play-offs with four matches remaining. It now looks unlikely that Allan Moore’s men will make the cut despite Peterhead’s defeat to Brechin.

David McKenna gave Albion the lead but Stuart McColm equalised for Stranraer before half-time and Michael Moore came off the bench to head a 93rd-minute winner for the visitors, who had picked up only two points in their previous 14 matches.

Raith arrive at Forthbank on the back of five straight wins and are only a point behind leaders Ayr. John McGlynn’s men need to keep winning to avoid a third successive season in the play-offs but they have a poor record against the Binos and were beaten 2-1 in Stirling in January, a result that was sandwiched between a pair of 1-1 draws at Stark’s Park.

The Kirkcaldy club’s fans will doubtless be nervous ahead of their latest trip to a venue where they have had little joy but Albion’s form seems to have deserted them at just the wrong time and only a big improvement will deny Rovers this weekend.

Looking back on the shock loss to Stranraer, Binos boss Allan Moore said: “We never really got started and there was no urgency about us. You don’t know what you are going to get from us from one week to the next at the moment. Last week, although we lost at Ayr, I thought we put in a decent performance, especially in the first half.

“Against Stranraer the expectations were for us to go out and pummel them but we looked nervous, we looked over-anxious and our boys were waiting for things to happen instead of making them happen. We managed to get a goal up and didn’t look under any pressure but then lost a goal from what was probably their first attack.

“It’s the story of our defending at the moment. No disrespect to Stranraer, but when your goalkeeper is named man of the match against the team at the bottom of the league then you know something isn’t quite right.

“I think we finished with five strikers on the pitch at the end and we still couldn’t score. We got a big ragged and a bit anxious because we knew we needed the win. Scott Christie had a couple of good saves to keep us in it before they scored at the end but the game should not have gone that far as we should have pushed on from 1-0 up.

“We should have scored within the first couple of minutes when Mark Docherty was caught offside because he didn’t time his run properly but we got a good goal from David McKenna before we lost a bad one following a throw-in.

“Slack marking has cost us again and our defensive record this season isn’t good enough. We should also be taking more of the chances we make at the other end. The record against the bottom four has cost us – no doubt about it.

“I know Peterhead lost to Brechin on Saturday but we have to take care of ourselves and we are not going to pick up many more points playing like that. I think maybe the players thought they could switch off after we had taken the lead and they drifted out of it.

“We gave Stranraer too much of the ball, we didn’t shut them down and we got what we deserved. The equaliser gave them a lift but I was still confident because it was 1-1 at half-time down there the last time and we went on to win 8-2, but we just couldn’t get going.

“We had pretty much a full team out there so we can’t put it down to that. We didn’t pass the ball well enough and we didn’t make the right decisions.

“We have always been chapping at the door of the play-offs but every time we get close the door seems to slam shut again because of a bad performance. There was no pressure on Stranraer – it was all on us and we didn’t handle it.”