East Fife v Clyde

Recap

After last week’s first win of the season, expectancy levels were raised ahead of Clyde’s trip north to take on East Fife but after another dire performance, the Bully Wee’s short-term future once more looks like being a desperate struggle against relegation. 

East Fife featured ex-Clyde players Aaron Conway and Shaun Fagan and only Marvyn Wilson’s absence prevented Clyde from fielding an unchanged starting line-up; Connor Stevenson came into the midfield. The main changes were on the bench where new signing Gary Muir and Scott Gair came into the squad in place of Conn Boyle and Jamie Doyle.

From almost the first minute it became clear that a blustery wind was going to ruin proceedings and East Fife dealt with the conditions better than Clyde throughout the game with a series of long balls that the Bully Wee’s rearguard failed to deal with. With the away team struggling to settle, the Fifers took advantage by netting the opener within the first five minutes. Conway sent over a decent corner and Guy Kerr, having run away from Alan Lithgow, flicked a header past Calum Reidford and into the net despite Stevenson’s attempts to clear.

The long-ball approach continued to pay dividends for the home team and both Paul McManus and Conway fired efforts past the post. Reidford then had to look lively to block McManus as he ran through on goal. Clyde then started to work their way into the game and their first real chance fell to Paul McLeod. The striker, fresh from his first goal of the season last week, moved onto Willie Sawyer’s flick but as he waited for the ball to come down it gave the chance for goalkeeper Stewart Baillie to close him down and block his effort. Then came Clyde’s best effort as McLeod was fouled just outside the box and from Jay Lang’s free-kick Baillie produced a superb save to tip the strike onto the post.

The list of efforts on goal shouldn’t detract from the fact that this was another terribly poor game and the second half didn’t even see the same level of goalmouth excitement. Paul Stewart fired high over the bar after McLeod’s flick to set him up whilst at the other end, Reidford saw a succession of weak strikes from distance fly past his post. The Bully Wee tried to change things by introducing Muir, Stephen Odenewu and Adam Coakley for Stevenson, Robert Halliday and McLeod as Clyde switched to a three up-front system. The best chance in the closing period fell to Sawyers as he was released in the box by Lithgow but the striker’s low shot crept wide of the post. In the final incident of the game, Odenewu went down in the box under a heavy challenge but the referee waved play on.

Clyde have yet to be hammered this season but on an occasion like this, some additional quality on the bench could have made a difference and none of the players brought on provided anything different to the players they replaced. With Dumbarton’s late winner at Peterhead, the Bully Wee slumped to the bottom of the table.