Allan McManus signed off his spell as caretaker manager today with an impressive 2-1 win away to Hibernian in the IRN-BRU Cup. Allan believes his side deserves to be in Monday’s quarter-final draw.
“I’m absolutely over the moon for the players. That is what they deserved after how they have worked the last three weeks. You couldn’t have asked for the boys to be working any harder to try and make things right and turn their season around. So I thought they thoroughly deserved that today, to come to a place like Easter Road against easily the best team in the division, in my opinion, and play under that pressure with composure and game management. When things weren’t going their way in the game, they were dogged and they worked hard, I think at the end of the day nobody can grudge them that victory.”
Allan reckons the Saints players showed real mental strength today to battle back from a goal down to win the tie.
“When you are down there that is probably the biggest issue, mental strength or how the mind thinks as it’s easy to think negatively all the time. But it’s something that we have been hammering home to them the last three weeks that they are good players and they do work hard, they’ve worked their backsides off and you never earn the right to dominate a game for ninety minutes so if it’s not going your way it is just to believe that you are a good player and to keep doing the right things and keep taking the ball under pressure. To a man today every one of them done that.
“I’m absolutely delighted for Clarky coming on, Shanks and Gal who have not had as much football as they probably deserve in the last couple of weeks but I think they have all played a massive part today. Hopefully it gives the boys that kick-start, they have shown today and hopefully they can take that confidence into the league campaign starting next week.”
For the second week running substitutions made by Allan have turned out to be inspired.
“You can say it is inspired or you can say it is a bit of luck. At the end of the day we live and die by the decisions that we make, so yes it has went well for us. Clarky, Shanks and Gal have been champing at the bit the last two weeks and they get their rewards for that today. When you have got boys that are working so hard in training and desperate to get on the pitch you know that when you put them on that they will be desperate to do well. They’ve done fantastically well today but the rest of the players were fantastic as well.”
Allan thought bad fortune was still dogging Saints when the winning goal was initially flagged offside but a change of heart by the officials meant the goal stood.
“We were thinking ‘here we go again’ and it was going to go against us. Speaking to the boys in there, although Shanks was maybe in an offside position he hasn’t interfered with the ball or touched it and it has gone in. He has not interfered with play at the end of the day and that’s the rules, and that’s the breaks that we deserve.”
With Allan signing off his last game in charge with a win he hopes that it will help push the side on under the new management team of Jack Ross and James Fowler as they look to improve their fortunes in the Championship.
“It’s always great to win a game of football but I keep saying that it’s not about me. It’s about the team, about the club and where we are in the league just now and I’ve always said that is about trying to get the boys believing in themselves and working that bit harder and trying to pay the right way.
“I said this week that there would be nothing better than to go and get a result so it allows the manager and James to come in on Monday to pick up the reins with the place on a high after a deserved victory, and hopefully the boys take that into the league campaign next weekend.”
