Feeling Blue on the road

STRANRAER gaffer Chris Aitken admitted he was disappointed to lose on the first day of the new campaign after an impressive pre-season showing against higher level opposition.

Aitken’s men were defeated 1-0 at Forfar last Saturday in their League Two opener.

Stuart Morrison scored what proved to be the winner for The Loons on 37 minutes.

While the Blues made a decent start to the second period, they were dealt a blow just before the hour after finding themselves a man down when Evan Dunne was shown a second yellow card.

Aitken said: “We knew what we were going to be in for when we came up here. We knew what it was going to be like and we knew it was going to be physical.

“I’m just very disappointed. In the last five weeks we’ve put in all this good work and we came here and never really played. We played for the last ten minutes when we were down to ten men, but it’s easy to do that.

“We need to go away and prepare ourselves for next week for Edinburgh City at home, because we need to make sure we get up and running in this league campaign.

“It wasn’t the start we wanted but it is what it is. We know how difficult League Two is.

“The disappointing thing was, I thought, that for the early spells of the game we were getting outfought and they had more desire.

“I thought we started the second half better, but when we go down to ten men it’s always going to be a difficult task.”

Seven days prior, Aitken’s Blues beat full-time League One side Queen of the South 1-0 in their final League Cup match.

Aitken added: “It’s easy when you play teams from the leagues above. But this (the league) is the bread and butter, the stuff that really matters.

“It’s about coming back to doing the stuff that we’re good at. That’s high-press, playing with intensity and with real energy.

“We’ll come back in, work extremely hard and prepare for Edinburgh City.”

It is back at Stair Park this Saturday, and the manager wants to be on the front foot on home turf against Edinburgh City.

The capital side were handed a 15 point deduction on Tuesday as per SPFL rules on clubs suffering an insolvency event.

Aitken said: “We know exactly what Edinburgh City are going to try and do. They are going to come and they are going to try and dominate the ball.

“But we’re at home and we need to be on the front foot. They’ve lost their opening game and so have we, so that makes it even bigger.”