Manager Post Montrose
Saturday, 13th Aug 202213/08/22: Link to audio of James McPake’s post match comments
- - Listen to this James McPake interview
Speaking after the 1-0 win over Montrose, Pars manager James McPake said:-
“It`s a great start to the league campaign. It`s not easy to put three wins in a row together at any point in the season, in any league for any team. Particularly when you`re one of the so-called bigger teams in the league, when teams do come and frustrate. It`s another one of those afternoons.
“I wouldn`t say we were as fluent as we were last week. A lot of that goes down to Montrose and the way they were set up. We`re disappointed that the (Kerr Waddell) header comes from a setplay. I think that was their only chance in the game. The one Deniz saves - if the goalie hadn’t saved that he wouldn’t have played for me again. The one chance we`re annoyed at is the header but you get away with it.
“We had enough chances in the first ten minutes, again, to put the game to bed. It`s down to pressing, which is great. We nicked it off them a couple of times. Again that`s the wee ruthless side we need.
"I think it would have been unfair on Montrose if we`d scored two or three of the chances that we got really late on. I don`t think that would have been a true reflection of the game. I don`t think it was anything like a 3 or 4-0 like last week should have been.
“It was the right result in the end, a tight enough game but we were worthy winners. We`re delighted - it`s three out of three, it`s three clean sheets in a row. It`s better than getting beat.
"Big Nikolay (Todorov) hasn`t played a lot of football, Kyle (Macdonald) has been in and out the team. What a ball, what a header, it`s what they can bring. Chrissy (Mochrie) came on and did a good job as well. He`s a young kid learning his trade and he`s an intelligent young kid. I looking forward to working with him a lot, he played here last season. That was a wee bit added for him, playing against his former team.
"I`m not going to stand here and lie. In games like this you do see how threadbare the squad is. It worked today but on another day I`m standing here frustrated because I can`t make the changes. We`re working on it, and we have time to work on it. But the changes we did put on were great because we won the game. On another day, if I don`t win that game...
“I want to make this place a fortress. We had enough chances in the game to win. All credit to Craig Wighton, he`s playing with two knees that shouldn`t be playing just now. We`re getting Chris (Mochrie) up to fitness, we`re having to play Craig at the minute and it`s disrupting his training. Through the week we can`t put on 11v11 on. That`s the point it`s at, I am training with 10 bodies at times.
"There was a 16 year old (Taylor Sutherland) that I met for the first time this morning on the bench that played last night. We were thinking that if we need something on the right, he`s really fast - but the way the game was I had to put Kyle on. If it was like last week`s game, we maybe could have put him on to hurt a team down to 10 men, then I would have put the kid on.
“It`s frustrating, but we are working. I know where we are, I know what relegation has caused to happen at the club but we need to work hard to get players over the line and get additions to the squad. I`m saying this from a training perspective because I`m getting a little bit frustrated I can`t put a proper training session on because I don`t have enough bodies.
“Greg Shields is great with the younger kids but they`re not at the level yet, you can dip them in and out. One of the ones myself and Dave Mackay gave a debut to Josh Mulligan who scroes a cracking goal last night for Dundee. And that`s what we want to do here but we need the right tools to do it."
Where was Paul Allan today?
"He`s in a moon boot. So we`ve lost another player in Paul Allan. Four to eight weeks maybe, potentially 12 - I`m hoping it`s not that bad. I think you see we missed the balance of him. I think the balance Joe Chalmers, Paul Allan and Matty Todd has been really good and we missed that wee bit. But if that`s what we`ve got, then I`m in a fantastic job.
“I got over-excited when the goal went in because the boys are giving me absolutely everything. When you`ve got such a small squad and you`re asking so much of those player and they are producing so much for you, it gives you so much pride. They`re leaving nothing, we`re praying to avoid injury. I`m being deadly serious, we`re one or two away from a proper crisis. One or two away from playing people I don`t know."
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