On Saturday Queens travel to meet Airdrie--the only team we've beaten in the league this season--and the majority of our fans would no doubt settle for a repeat of that 1-0 scoreline at Palmerston back in October. Last season we had a good record against Airdrie, losing only once in five meetings. We won two out of three at New Broomfield so let us all hope that augers well for the weekend.
Manager, Ian McCall is taking no chances and intends to take in Airdrie's game against league leaders, St Mirren tonight. Said Ian, "Providing the match goes ahead I'll be up at Love Street. We've already had them watched but it's a golden opportunity to see them for myself. Their manager, Sandy Stewart, has done a terrific job since moving there. He's a very good friend of mine and has a lot of excellent players at his disposal--Willie McLaren, Brian McPhee and Paul Lovering to name only a few. They're a good side and it will be yet another tough one, but if we show the effort and play as we did on Saturday I'm confident we can come away with a result.
"We've an extremely difficult programme ahead of us with four of our next six matches away from home. But we've got to take points from those fixtures and if we go out with the hunger and endeavour we did against Ross County, I know we will. The Dingwall club are going 'great guns' at the moment and playing some of the best football in our league, so to totally dominate the game for 80 minutes and still lose was a real sickener for us all.
"Their manager, Gardner Speirs, openly admitted it was 'daylight robbery' and they were going back up the road with 'their tails between their legs', but they did collect three points. However, that's football for you, and we must learn from our mistakes. The feedback I've had from the fans is that they were all 'sick' at the final result, just like myself, but the majority admitted they could see a lot of 'positives' and were optimistic for the future.
"I know myself that we must score more goals and to do that we need to get more bodies up in the box so we have three or four players in scoring positions. I realise it may leave us more vulnerable in defence but we shouldn't be losing the goals we are at present. That's eight in two games which is unacceptable, and practically every one of those were down to bad defending and could have been avoided. I'll 'hold my hands up' and accept some of the blame for the 5-2 defeat at Hamilton. I asked the lads to play a system which they were not familiar with, but against Ross County I thought they were great--apart from the goals conceded of course.
"They were some excellent individual performances! Willie Gibson did some absolutely outstanding things with the ball; 'Bowser' was back at his best while our two front men, Del Lyle and John O'Neill 'ran their socks off'. Del's goal was a brilliant strike and that's four goals in three games for John and I'm delighted with that. Any fans I've met since Saturday have said, 'That's the best Queens have played all season'. I'm gratified to hear that and if it continues, I promise you the points will come.
"I'd still like to bring in a few players in the January 'window', with a full-back, a central defender and a striker our main priority. I'm looking and talking all the time about replacements and only this morning I noticed in the papers that Ian Harty was going to be available and I must have been one of the first on the phone to Hamilton making enquires. I know he's been out for the last six months but if he can still knock in the goals like he used to, I'd be interested".
Bill Goldie
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