Rabin Omar: Elgin City should take encouragement from League Cup efforts
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ELGIN City midfielder Rabin Omar says his side have to "take encouragement" from their Betfred Cup efforts.
City, who had won just three of their last 30 League Cup matches going into the group, were big outsiders against Premiership side Hibernian, Championship sides Alloa Athletic and Arbroath and fellow League Two club Stirling Albion.
But after a narrow 2-1 defeat to Arbroath, City beat Alloa on penalties away before the comprehensive three-goal thrashing of Stirling at Borough Briggs.
City finished second bottom of the group after a 2-0 defeat to Hibs on Friday – but can be proud of a performance which saw them match Paul Heckingbottom's side for 90 minutes and lose due to two mistakes.
REPORT: Elgin City 0-2 Hibernian.
Omar said: "The bigger picture is the league. Realistically these games are like pre-season games.
"We have got to take encouragement from the fact we have taken points off a Championship team in Alloa, Stirling came here and we kept a clean sheet and beat them and lost to a last minute overhead kick at Arbroath.
"The league we are in is not going to be as hard as what Hibs showed."
Omar was awarded man of the match against Hibs – but it was a night of mixed emotions for him personally and he was hard on himself for giving the ball to Florian Kamberi for the Edinburgh side's second goal.
The midfielder also had one of the home side's best chances in the second half, but was given man of the match for a typical battling performance.
"The second goals kills us," he said. "And that's all on me. I played a slack back pass. If that doesn't happen you are playing the last 30 minutes 1-0 down and you have always got a chance.
"We weren't put off by being 1-0 down, we were still attacking and going forward but we made mistakes and they punished us.
"My chance in the second half, if I go across the goalie it maybe goes in.
"But maybe we are being too hard on ourselves. If we look at the game all in and see how well we have done, we can see how we can go against the big teams and see we can go toe-to-toe with them."
Omar added: "I didn't even realise I got man of the match. My head was all over the place, to be honest."
