Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Rovers relegated
Albion drop to League 2
Albion Rovers boss Brian Kerr admits he doesn’t know if he has a future at Cliftonhill after final-day relegation.
The Coatbridge outfit were sent to the bottom of League One by champions Ayr following Queen’s Park shock three-goal win over Arbroath on the last day of the season.
As the Advertiser revealed last week, Kerr and assistant Stuart Malcolm are now out of contract – and the former Motherwell and Newcastle midfielder is unclear about his future in the dugout.
“We’ve not got contracts so it’s up to the club to decide what they want to do,” said the gutted gaffer.
“We just need to wait and see now what is going to happen in the next few days and take it from there.”
The boss felt that the size of the wafer-thin squad played a huge part in their poor run of form after Christmas which saw then sink down the table.
The Cliftonhill side only picked up one win in their final 10 games of the season and have had just two wins since the turn of the year.
Kerr, who took over from Darren Young last summer, reckons he sacrificed squad size to bring in players he
believed would add quality. “After the game I just thanked the boys for their efforts this season, ”the former Scotland cap continued.
“There is no doubt there have been good highs and there have been the obvious lows.
“This season it’s just been about trying to keep a group of boys consistently fit and not suspended. That’s where our real downfall has been.
“With a small budget at the start of the season we aren’t going to get big numbers. Our thoughts were to keep a small group and hopefully keep them free of injury all season.
“It’s been a problem but if you don’t try to bring in a bit of quality in the likes of Alan Trouten and Graeme Holmes, you’re going to be lacking.
“You might have numbers but not that bit of quality in the squad.
“We just need to decide whether that was a good or a bad shout.
“You have someone like Alan Trouten who shows to everybody the benefits he brings with scoring 28 goals over the season. We made the decision to bring that kind of quality in.
“At the same time, over the course of the season we never had the numbers and had to bring in a lot of young and inexperienced players.
“Due to budgets, that has caused us problems. It is what it is. We now have to pick up the pieces and see where we go from here.”