Kerr: Gayfield show not good enough

Arbroath ....................... 1 Albion Rovers ............... 0

Mark Pirie

Brian Kerr admits that Albion Rovers’ lacklustre performance against Arbroath wasn’t good enough as they slumped to seven games without a win.

The Gayfield side racked up another key victory in their push for the play-off places at the expense of the Coatbridge men with Omar Kader’s superb 20-yard first-half strike.

However, Cliftonhill gaffer Brian Kerr feels it was hard on his players to lose – but conceded that the showing didn’t hit the standards they had set.

“There wasn’t a lot in the game at either end,”he told the Advertiser.“We had a couple of decent chances but then we get undone by a strike from 25 yards out.

“Overall I think we looked solid at the back and were undone by a good goal. There isn’t an awful lot we can do about that.

“Going forward we seemed to be missing something.

“It’s not what we have been used to this season.

“We have been focusing so much on trying to keep it tight at the back and not conceding goals, and with the way we have been playing you almost expect the attacking stuff to take care of itself.

“We have obviously lost Connor (Shields) which takes away some of our attacking threat and that extra bit of pace we had to get in behind people.

“That can’t be an excuse though. The players in that dressing room know that we expect a lot better from them in the final third.

“We need to be much better at breaking teams down.”

With scheduled opponents Ayr now on Scottish Cup duty against Rangers this weekend, Rovers have a free Saturday afternoon.

It hands Forfar, who make the trip to Alloa on Saturday, the chance to leapfrog the Coatbridge outfit and put them in the relegation spots.

Despite the battle at the bottom of the table gathering pace, Kerr – with a huge injury list – has called it a“blessing in disguise”as they now have a chance to recover.

He said:“I’d like to think that this break will give us a chance to get a few bodies back.

“I’m hopeful that by the Raith game we will have both Ross Perry and Jason Marr back if they can get over their niggles.

“Alan Reid might still be out but he has been positive about it in the past week. We think it might not be as bad as initially feared.

“Gary Fisher has also been struggling for fitness and has had a niggle but has been playing through that for the past few weeks.

“So a break at this stage in the season might not be the worst thing for us.”