Airdrie's Championship first quarter has been decent, but can be improved, says No.2

Callum Fordyce says the Diamonds could make life easier for themselves by taking more chances

Bookmark
Share

06:00, 25 OCT 2023

Callum Fordyce says Airdrie's start to life in the Championship has been decent, but is looking for improvement (Image: SNS Group)

Callum Fordyce says Airdrie’s Championship first quarter report card is good – but wants improvement.

A 1-1 draw at home to Queen’s Park left the Diamonds fourth in the table ahead of this weekend’s games, in their first season in the second tier in 10 years.

Assistant boss and defender Fordyce reckons Airdrie have performed well enough, but is looking for them to step it up in the second quarter, starting at Inverness on Saturday.

He said: “The Championship is a tough division, there are loads of good teams, loads of good players, and it’s a learning curve for that first quarter – but it’s a reasonable start from us.

“If you had offered us at the start of the season where we are now, we would have been delighted with it.

“We are happy with where we are, but there’s probably slight disappointment as well.

“I feel, and the players probably feel it as well, that there has been more to come from us.

“We’ve maybe just not hit the heights yet, as in games, final third play and things like that.

Airdrie opened the scoring against Queen's Park through a Calum Gallagher strike (Image: SNS Group)

“We probably could have killed teams off a bit sooner, and made games a lot easier for ourselves.

More sports news from across Lanarkshire

“Apart from the Arbroath game [4-0 defeat at Gayfield], when we’ve been beat it has been a narrow defeat, and we’ve had chances to get there.

“But you’ve got to strive to improve and want to push to be at the top, so that’s what we will be doing in the second quarter.”

Fordyce feels that while Airdrie missed a number of chances on Friday night, a draw with Queen’s Park was probably fair overall, having watched the footage back.

“They had a chance in the first half with Louis Longridge going through and Josh Rae makes a good save, and he made a great save from Ruari Paton.

Queen's Park pegged Airdrie back in the second half, earning a point from the clash (Image: SNS Group)

“Once Queen’s Park got their goal they had their tails up and it took us a while to get back in the game.

“But as the game went on we got stronger. I think in the last 20 minutes, if there was a team that was going to win it, it was going to be ourselves.

“A draw was probably a fair result, but when you look at the last 20 minutes we probably had the better chances and were the team that looked like they were going to win the game.

“Toddy [Nikolay Todorov] has that chance and on another day he sticks that away, but we didn’t get beat, and you don’t ever want to get into that rut of two defeats on the bounce, so we’ve got out of that and got that point.

“You’re probably disappointed because of how you finished the game and the chances that you had, but over the 90 minutes a draw is probably a fair result.”