Match Report

Airdrieonians v Stenhousemuir at New Broomfield Stadium, Airdrie on 25.2.14

SPFL Division One                            Att 586

Airdrieonians 1[Lister 69]  Stenhousemuir 1[Greacen 86]

Airdrieonians – Adam, Barr, Bain, Watt, Buchanan, Milojevic, McAleer, McAleer, McCormack [b34], Lister, Parker and Boyle. Subs not used – Cadden, Coogans, Stewart, Richford, McCluskey, Gilmour and Blockley.

Stenhousemuir – C.Smith, Devlin, Malone, McMillan, Greacen, Hodge [Watt 71], McKinlay [McNeil 81], Rowson, Lynch, Dickson [D.Smith 71] and Higgins [b73]. Subs –  Douglas, Shaw, Brash and Nimmo.

Referee – Kevin Graham              Assistants – Graeme Stewart and Paul Reid

After the draw at Ibrox on the Saturday prior to this midweek game it was always going to be interesting to see how the Warriors reacted to the challenge against an Airdrie team that had went five games unbeaten and had started to draw themselves up the league after been firmly planted at the bottom earlier in the season.

The Warriors started with the same starting eleven and the same formation whilst meant that Sean Higgins was playing a lone role upfront and hoping for support coming from the midfield and the player holding the gap between both. Unlike Saturday this was not a successful ploy with the Airdrie defenders being stronger in their game and Stenhousemuir not having the same energy levels throughout and were therefore struggling throughout the game to create anything of note.

Airdrie certainly had the territorial advantage in the opening exchanges and Darren McCormack saw a shot fly over in the 4^th minute. New signing Craig Barr had an effort blocked in the 14^th minute and Jim Lister will have felt that he should have done better than fire the rebound wide. The closest that the home side came to opening the scoring though was through Nicky Devlin who almost scored with a 25 yard effort into his own net after sliding in to win a tackle.

He created an opportunity at the right end in the 31^st minute though with a cross that Sean Dickson headed wide. McCormack was then denied after 35 minutes when his strike from the edge of the box was superbly tipped over by Chris Smith. There was another let off for Stenhousemuir three minutes later when dreadful defending allowed Liam Watt in but he was put off by a despairing slide tackle and blasted wide when more composure would have probably seen him score.

In the 45^th minute Kevin McKinlay and Higgins combined with the former crossing to Sean Dickson who played it back out to Higgins whose shot was comfortably saved by Grant Adam. This was the first time the keeper had been called into action all night.

All in all the first half was one for the Warriors to forget whohad offered little in the way of attacking football and had looked jaded in all departments. The only consolation had been that Airdrie had been unable to take advantage.

The second half continued in the same way as the first with Stenhousemuir rarely rising above the mediocre and Airdrie without being much better always looked the more likely team to make the breakthrough. It was not therefore too much of a surprise then when they took the lead in the 68^th minute. Eddie Malone blundered in failing to clear his lines and Caolan McAleer crossed into the danger area to Jim Lister who fired into the net though it may have been helped by a deflection.

Lister almost got his second in the 84^th minute when Keighan Parker played him in after getting the better of Stewart Greacen. It took a superb save by Chris Smith to deny Lister and give Stenhousemuir a lifeline.

To their credit they took it a couple of minutes later when they equalised. A Sean Higgins corner was missed by Grant Adam and Stewart Greacen was on hand to head home an unexpected equaliser.

There were no further goals, or indeed action, before the final whistle blew. Whether Stenhousemuir deserved a point is debatable but Airdrie really didn’t do enough to justify all three.

This was the fifth draw in a row in the league and they have come back to level in every one of these games.