Elgin City manager Allan Hale praises team display in William Hill League 2 defeat to Spartans
Elgin City manager Allan Hale was left scratching his head after his team’s latest league loss.
He watched the Black and Whites dominate a visiting Spartans side for long periods, particularly in the first half.
Ultimately the Moray side was to finish on the losing side for the sixth game in a row after Blair Henderson and Ayrton Sonkur netted from two setpieces for the Edinburgh men, who have drawn level with Elgin in fourth spot.
“It was complete domination in the first half,” said Hale. “I don't think Spartans knew how to deal with us. I thought, you know, our rotations, our movement, the way that we moved the ball, we'd done everything but score.
“I've been involved in football long enough to know that when you have that period of dominance that you have to score when you're on top.
“We've had plenty of opportunities to get shots away earlier and there's that hesitation in our play in the final third at the moment where we're not getting the shot away early enough, we're not putting the ball in early enough, we're not getting runners attacking the box early enough.
“There's that little bit of doubt in the players' minds with the run and the confidence and the frustration and things like that.
“But I saw so many good things about the performance. People might disagree with that but I know my players are inside out and I don't think we had a bad performer on the pitch in terms of body language, attitude, motivation, hunger, desire, both in and out of possession.
“They've done all the things that we asked of them before the game and look much more like ourselves in terms of the confidence and taking the ball under pressure, moving it side to side.
“In the second half we just got that little bit desperate to play that forward pass a wee bit. Fair play to Spartans, they sat in that block and they protected the space in behind.
“We spoke about what we had to do at half-time and we didn't quite manage to execute it.”
