Elgin City manager Allan Hale reflects on missed chances in his team’s William Hill League 2 defeat at Stirling Albion
The clinical element which Elgin City used to bury Bonnyrigg was nowhere to be seen in Stirling on Saturday.
City manager Allan Hale reflected on missed chances as his men fell to back-to-back losses to the Binos, and lost ground in the League 2 title chase.
Hale pointed to his strikers passing up good opportunities at important times in their 3-1 defeat at Forthbank.
Some of those squandered chances came before Stirling’s deadly double strike in a three-minute spell of the first half that left the Black and Whites facing a mountain to climb.
When Russell Dingwall then slid a penalty wide of the post and the home side responded with a third goal, it rendered Ross Draper’s headed effort to be no more than a consolation.
“It was a first half performance where we didn't get anywhere near the standard that we're capable of,” said Hale.
“At League Two level, games are defined and decided on small margins and unfortunately those margins didn't really fall our way.”
New signing Kane Hester failed to add to his midweek brace in the 3-0 success over Bonnyrigg, a game where Hale felt his team may have had less scoring opportunities than they had at Forthbank.
“At 0-0, Kane’s had two really good chances to put us in the lead. We then missed a penalty at 2-0 early in the second half, which would have put the momentum in our favour had we scored it.
“And then Kane’s missed another chance and Olly’s (McDonald) missed a chance at 3-1 with 15 minutes to go or so. We arguably actually created more chances on Saturday than we did against Bonnyrigg.
“We weren't actually clinical with our chances. But in saying that the first half performance was one where we looked jaded from the last game, but we tried to make a couple of changes because we knew there was some tiredness in the squad.
“Those changes didn't really bear fruit in terms of getting the usual intensity and energy levels that we usually get.
“So it was a disappointing day for sure and we just need to take the medicine from the disappointment of the weekend and then try and focus our attention on trying to put in a better, more sustainable performance for this weekend (against Stranraer).”
