Athletic have chance to look at problems

Oct 15 2008 by Craig Robertson, Dumfries Standard Wednesday

ANNAN Athletic took Thursday night’s friendly with Queen of the South to examine exactly where they’ve been going wrong.

A slump in form has seen the SFL-new boys slide down the Third Division.

After such a successful start to life in the Scottish League, it has been a disappointment for the club who have injected fresh blood into the game.

But chairman Henry McClelland insists the Galabankies will recover from their minor slump and battle on through the season.

He told the Standard: “Harry was taking a squad of 20 players to play Queens and was basically playing two teams in each half.

“There are a couple boys we brought in at the start of the season that haven’t played for one or two reasons so they got a chance.

“We know we need to look at fixing up our defence and playing a friendly match allows us to further assess our options and maybe do things a wee bit differently.”

One of Annan’s main problems has been losing early goals.

And McClelland admits the Annan boys just can’t afford to make those errors in the Third Division.

He said: “We know it is not good enough in this league to make silly mistakes here and there as you get punished for it.

“That’s the reality of the Third Division.

“We are now coming to the end of the first quarter of the league and have to look at where we go from here.

“The boys need to keep their heads up and remember that we have done well to get where we are and just need to get some of that confidence back.

“We have already showed that we can do it.”