Saturday 25th January, 2014 at 2:39pm
Conditions at New St Mirren Park were hardly ideal but when [link:HOME] spoke to manager Alan Archibald in the warmth of the St Mirren Media Room after yesterday’s game he was full of praise for the efforts of both sets of players.
“I thought that both teams gave their all. I felt that we tired towards the end just because of the midweek game and you could see that in the last 5 or 10 minutes. The conditions didn’t help in that regard either. The players gave their all though.”
Alan continued;
“I think at the end of the game the wind was at its’ worst; it was horrendous. Fair play to both goalkeepers because they came and tried to catch things and it couldn’t have been easy for them in those conditions. We struggled to get the ball out our half at times when the wind was bad and it was the same with St Mirren in the first half when conditions were poor and we dominated the game. Conditions had a big part to play in the game today as when we were able to get the ball down and pass it I thought that we were very threatening.”
A plus point to take from the game was a clean sheet, our second away from home this season, and Lee Mair has slotted in well at the back since joining the Club from St Mirren. Said Alan;
“Lee did very well today and he used his experience well against his mate Stephen Thompson. He knows Thompson inside out from having played with him for the last couple of seasons and I thought that he did very well against him.”
A major downside from the afternoon was the injury picked up by Kallum Higginbotham in the first half and the manager was able to provide us with an update on his condition.
“Kallum got six stitches across his knee joint. It opened up straight away. It was a bad one for him and it was a bad one for the team as well as I thought he was coming into his game and was causing them problems; he got the player booked for the challenge on him. It was a hard one to take. I would imagine that he will be out for a few weeks. If it was stitches on anywhere else on the body you could possibly get away with strapping him up but with the knee joint we will need to have a look. If he trains and falls on it, it will just keep on bursting open. I’ll speak to the physio and the doctor and we’ll take things from there.”
Kallum wasn’t the only player to pick up a knock during the course of the game.
“Chris took a knock and Lyle Taylor was also struggling so all three substitutions today were enforced. Chris took a bad one down the back of his Achilles and Lyle we felt was tiring as he’s played a lot of football recently.”
Alan went on;
“Chris obviously won’t be able to play next week as it is against Dundee United and if Kallum is also out that will give us a problems as that will leave us two players down for next week.”
The January transfer window remains open for a time yet and the search for further additions to the squad continues;
“We’re still looking; we still need a bit of strengthening. I think it’s been there for everyone to see over the last few weeks. Any time we get a couple of injuries and suspensions that leaves us really light.”
As we move well into the second half of the season it’s becoming a really scramble for points in our area of the league table.
“It’s getting really tight down at the bottom. You just don’t know how results are going to go; you can’t predict them. All we can do is keep looking at those above us and try and get as many points as we can.”
