Ayr United - After Match Reaction
Saturday 4th September 2010
Thistle this afternoon marched through to the semi-final of the ALBA Challenge Cup with a 2-1 win over Ayr United in what proved to be an entertaining 90 minutes.
As always www.ptfc.co.uk caught up with Thistle manager Ian McCall for his thoughts on the afternoon’s game.
“I thought that in the first half we were absolutely terrific and had we gone in at half-time 2-0 or 3-0 ahead then it would have been game over. It wouldn’t have flattered us if we had gone in at the break with that kind of lead either.”
“We were disappointed when we lost a goal a minute after taking the lead at Cowdenbeath last week and a disappointing aspect of the game today was that we conceded, this time after 3 minutes, so soon after scoring a second goal today. In the second half Ayr United adopted a very gung-ho approach and they had two or three chances to score and Bryn Halliwell made a terrific save as well. In Andy Rodgers Ayr have a very talented player, a player that I like, and while Mark Roberts legs might have gone a bit his movement is still first class. It wasn’t an easy game for us by any means.”
“While Ayr were putting us under pressure we had thought of changing the formation but decided to play David Rowson just in front of the defence as we tried to weather the storm. As much as Ayr had us under pressure during the last 20 minutes or so though we shouldn’t forget that we had some really good chances as well. It was a very open game with both teams chasing goals all the time.”
“It was pleasing to see Jackie McNamara back in action and I think that he showed today that he is a class player. The position that we played him in isn’t necessarily the position that I would prefer to play him in but we are a little think in terms of numbers at the moment. The good thing though is that Alan Archibald is on the way back and will play in a game on Tuesday. It would be nice to have both Jackie and Alan back for the semi-final.”
“We brought Stuart Bannigan into the team for the game today and I thought that he was terrific and showed some nice touches. We took him off after 70 minutes simply because the game was getting tough but he has made it hard for us to take him out of the team for next week against Stirling Albion which is a very important game for us.”
“We had to make a change at half-time with John Robertson picking up a calf injury. We think though that as we got him off early enough that he should be okay.”
