No room for further error
Harvey – Glens can’t lose again if we want promotion
Willie Harvey said his Glencairn team can’t afford any more slip- ups if they want to get themselves in the promotion mix come the end of the season.
Glens’ four-game winning run came to a halt on Saturday when they lost 1-0 to new league leaders Shettleston at home.
It . was a game the Rutherglen men should have won having created a number of clear-cut chances.
But an inspired performance from Gary Whyte in the Shettleston goal kept the Glens at bay before Kieran O’Hear slotted home a late winner.
It was a cruel blow for Glens and Harvey warned his side they cannot afford to lose any more games this season.
“We felt we could lose one game and still get ourselves in the mix, it’s just come a lot earlier than we’d hoped.
“It’s all down to how we respond on Saturday
“If we win all our games then I would hope that is good enough for third spot. I wouldn’t say we have to win them all yet because we don’t know all the permutations.
“But let’s put it this way: we can’t afford to drop many more points.”
It was a case of the same old story for Glens as missed chances came back to haunt them on Saturday.
They started with the same side for the fifth game running and showed no signs of rustiness for most of the 90 minutes.
Whyte denied the home side on
a number of occasions and when a defensive error was made, it cost the Glens the match.
Harvey said: “It was back to the old ways - if you don’t take your chances you don’t win games.
“Their goalkeeper had a great game, he made a bundle of really good saves, but the goal we lost was a disgrace.
“It’s just a goal kick that has cut right through us.
“I just can’t accept that from my team, and I say team because we win and lose as a team. I’m not going to just blame the defenders. If we had scored the goals we should have then the defence wouldn’t have been under pressure.
“But we went up against the team second in the league and gave them a doing. One of their committee members said it had been a mugging.
“The performance was good. We played well at the back but it was like the start of the season. We put ourselves under pressure by not taking our chances and nine times out of 10 you get punished.”
The first opportunity to get over the defeat will come for Glens on Saturday when they host Irvine Meadow at the Celsius Stadium.
The Ayrshire men have struggled this season and currently sit second bottom of the league.
But their last league game before Saturday was a 4-1 thrashing of local rivals Irvine Meadow so confidence could be high.
Harvey has often said games against sides below Glens in the league pose a bigger danger than the big games.
And he warned his players they need to be on their game ahead of Saturday’s match.
“It’s a dangerous game for us. They got a good result last time out.
“They will keep fighting away and that win moved them off the bottom. It will have given everyone a wee lift ahead of our game.
“I think they will be rejuvenated, it will be a hard game and we’ll need to buckle down and put in a proper performance.
“That’s what I’ll be putting across to the players this week.”