Queen of the South v Clyde

Recap

Clyde came away from Dumfries with exactly what their play merited yesterday. Nothing. In a game that they started and finished positively, it was the hour in between where it all went wrong. They tested Goram early on and could have been a couple of goals to the good when first a Potter shot was cleared by Goram’s legs and from the resulting corner Millen’s header just clipped the top of the bar.

Then against the run of play Queens took the lead. A ball played over from the left found O’Connor unmarked and his poor shot came off John Potter and trickled past the despairing Dave McEwan who was a surprising choice in the Clyde goal.

Immediately Clyde went up the park and Falconer nodded down a cross into the area and Keogh from 10 yards blasted the ball wide of the goal when it looked easier to score. As the half progressed the game was settling into a midfield battle with neither side looking like scoring. Clyde resorted to putting high balls into the area in the hope that Falconer or Keogh could get on the end of one and Queens were putting a lot of cross balls into the area but McEwan showed perhaps why he got the start as he dealt with them all comfortably.

Fraser was Clyde’s best player and indeed Goram had to pull of a great save he got the ball cut back from Dunn and his shot was pushed over the bar for a corner. The other Clyde midfielders were having a poor game and indeed Kane was dispossessed on the half way line and it should have led to a second goal but the striker blasted high over from 12 yards out.

Clyde seemed to have no ideas how to break down the defence and the final ball into the box was always too late. They played with no width as neither Dunn nor a disappointing Jack Ross could get in behind the full backs. At half time Andy Kane was not warming up and indeed he came out for the second half in place of Keogh.

The second half was much of the same with Clyde having greater possession but doing little with it and Queens looking more threatening on the break. However Clyde were first to threaten with a lovely move from left to right with Millen sending Ross wide down the right and his cut back was met from 22 yards out by Millen but the shot was held low by Goram.

With 15 minutes left the game was killed as a contest by Paton as he took the ball midway in the Clyde half and from 25 yards rifled a shot past McEwan into the top corner. It was a great goal but he was given too much time to measure the shot.

The goal seemed to spur Clyde into action and they pulled a goal back through Andy Millen. With Dunn off he was taking all the corners and his ball into the box was eventually cleared back to him and from 8 yards he blasted the ball through a ruck of players into the net. However it was all too late and even though Potter had a header onto the top of the cross bar in the dieing seconds Clyde did not really deserve a share of the points.

After the game Alan Kernaghan was suitably disappointed. "We were disappointing but had some good chances and good movement early in the first half. It was shocking defending for the goal and then we were battling uphill. We just did not have urgency or ideas even though we had nice possession and nice football which did not count for much. It took us to the last five minutes to put them under any pressure at the back. We did not deserve to take anything from the game as their front two caused us problems all day. We could not cope with it at all. But otherwise I did not think there was much in it."