Airdrie boss laments defending as he makes 'under-10s' comparison after Montrose defeat

By David Reid

Airdrieonians manager Rhys McCabe says failure to do 'the basics you would tell under-10s' cost his side in Montrose last night after a second half fightback proved in vain.

The Diamonds boss was disappointed his side couldn't build on turning a two-goal deficit to get a win away to Montrose with the hosts netting two late goals to come away with a 4-2 win in League One. Goals by Calum Gallagher and Lewis Jamieson pulled the Diamonds level after dominating the beginning of the second half but Montrose got renewed optimism and saw the job through.

But he was left ruing some of their defending as they fell to a third defeat on the spin. McCabe said: "I don't think Montrose were in the game in the second half, it was all Airdrie before they scored again and if anyone was going to win the game prior to that it was us. "Basic stuff has cost us, it's something we'll learn from moving forward, it's not anything too complex that you need to go into in detail, it's things like stopping the cross like you would tell an Under 10s age group.

"You can't give someone half a yard at this level in the box, in terms of overall performance I was pleased with especially the way we wanted to play going forward. "The fluidity, the movement, and rotations in the forward areas caused them problems but we couldn't get the result unfortunately."

Airdrie, who have slipped to fourth in the table, went into the game off of a 1-0 league defeat at Kelty and a 1-0 loss to Alloa in the SPFL Trust Trophy the previous week.

McCade added: "On Saturday at Kelty, we probably lacked that creativity in the final third, it wasn't half chances last night against Montrose, it was half a dozen chances that we should really be doing better