Elgin City’s League Two start is the focus for manager Allan Hale
Focus for manager Allan Hale is now turning to Elgin City’s League Two season after the club’s League Cup campaign was wrapped up on Tuesday.
City were beaten 4-0 by Queen’s Park in Glasgow, with Hale admitting that the scoreline was fair, despite a good start from the Black and Whites.
Hale and assistant Stefan Laird treated the cup group stage as a “glorified pre-season”, and made three changes at half-time at Lesser Hampden.
He said: “4-0 was a fair reflection. In the first 35 minutes we were excellent. We had a good shape and organisation and the players were brave in possession.
“The missing piece was a lack of goal scoring opportunities that we created, despite reasonable possession.
“Then we gave away a goal. The frustrating thing throughout the cup group has been conceding a goal and then conceding another shortly after.
“That then impacts the confidence and belief of the players.”
City fell behind when former Inverness Caledonian Thistle man Roddy MacGregor scored in the 40th minute - and were then further behind at half-time when MacGregor doubled his tally.
The game was out of reach for City five minutes after the break when Dom Thomas scored, and Joshua Scott rounded off the scoring in the 71st minute.
Hale said the main thing at the end of the group stage - from which City have collected two points - is that the players have gained match fitness, sharpness and time on the pitch together.
“We made a lot of changes to the team,” Hale said. “The objective for these games is to be competitive, but it's really a glorified pre-season.
“The challenge is the volume of players that have come in and getting everyone on the pitch together. We want to give everyone a similar amount of minutes and are trying to put everyone in a position to get into the team for the first game of the season.
“We saw plenty of good things despite the results. We can't focus solely on results. We can see the foundations of a good team, but at the same time there is plenty of work to be done on the training ground.”
City will get a chance of do some of that training ground work tomorrow. With their cup group stage wrapped up early, the players will be meeting in Elgin for a training session.
The focus is fully on the League Two opener away to East Fife, which is on Saturday, August 3.
“Because of the schedule we had, it's probably a good thing that we don't have a game,” Hale said.
“It allows us to get on the training pitch. We will work on the things we have identified.
“It’s a tough game to start against a team with momentum behind them, but hopefully we can get off to a good start, which every team wants to do.
“We want to be as competitive possible and pick up as many wins as we can, and move away from where we have been the last two or three seasons.
“There are a lot of good teams so it's shaping up to be really competitive. Every team will be going in feeling they have strengthened.
“It's going to be tough, but for us it's about looking after ourselves.”
