Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Airdrie gaffer sets target after defeat
ALLOA ATHLETIC ................................... 2 AIRDRIEONIANS .................................... 1
Ian Murray has challenged his Airdrie side to go on a run that creates a bit of daylight between themselves and their League One title rivals.
Murray is looking for the Diamonds to bounce back from Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Alloa when they host Peterhead on Saturday, knowing that a win, and results going their way, could put them top of the pile.
That’s an incredible position to be in from fourth in the table, but just one point separates Airdrie from leaders Queen’s Park and Cove Rangers, while Montrose are level on 20 points.
Murray’s side are the form team ahead of Saturday’s clash, with four wins from their last six, while Peterhead have two wins and two draws from the same period.
“It’s one of those leagues at the moment,”said Murray.“if you look at Alloa, they just beat Queen’s Park and ourselves, and it’s very tight.
“It has all tightened up again from top to bottom and it’s incredible, but that’s frustrating for us, more than anything, because Saturday’s performance was certainly not like the last few weeks.
“You’re not going to win anything at this point, but you’ve got to get yourself into a position where you’re challenging.
“A couple of wins can propel you right up the table, and that’s incredible, because if we won on Saturday – and results went for us – we could have gone top of the league, suddenly, from fourth, which is very unusual.
“But we also know that if you don’t win then teams can get a wee start on you, or create a wee bit of a gap, and it’s going to be like that through the season.
“We’re all finding it incredibly difficult to get daylight between each other. There are loads of teams picking up great wins or great points, and we’re the same.
“There will be games where we’ll be disappointed, but there will be games where we come away with a great win.
“It’s about us trying to go on a really good run, just to try and create daylight between ourselves and the rest.”
A Euan Henderson double had Alloa 2-0 up inside 55 minutes, but Callum Fordyce’s strike with four minutes left came too late to spark a comeback.
Murray said:“it was a poor result. We were going into it on good form, but didn’t play particularly well.
“The goals that we conceded were really poor. The only positive we can take is that we kept going and tried pretty much everything to get back in it, and did so just five minutes too late.”