Thurso manager hopes return of key players can be positive
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Thurso boss Michael Bremner is hopeful the return of key personnel to his squad can boost his side’s winning chances in their upcoming North Caledonian League matches.
It comes after 15 of his players sat out a 3-0 defeat to Inverness Athletic last Saturday, dumping The Vikings out of the Football Times Cup.
Bremner’s biggest concern in that match was the lack of creativity his team had in the final third, and a disastrous spell of play in the first half.
“We competed well for the first 20 minutes,” he said.
“After that there was a period where we didn’t really challenge, and we concede three in 20 or so minutes before halftime. It was game over at that point.
“In the second half we played better and battled away. We’ve played some nice football throughout this season, but we’ve not created much. We’re playing out from the back nicely but once it reaches the top end of the pitch, everything starts to break down a little bit.
“We were lucky to get a team together to begin with though. We were struggling with bodies.
On Friday morning, we only had nine or ten players available so we had a couple of younger boys pulled in so we managed to make a squad on time.”
With the focus now firmly set on competing in the North Caledonian League after the cup defeat - Bremner was looking forward to welcoming back some important players before facing Orkney.
“We’ve got a few boys back in training - there’s at least six or seven who could return,” he said.
“Andrew Hardwick and Jack McKechnie are two top players who could come back into the team.
“Colin Macrae should be back this week to help us in midfield too.
“Hopefully with the return of these boys and some other guys, we can push on for the rest of the season.
“We’ll go over to Orkney confident but I’m taking no chances despite them being in the position they are at this stage of the season.
“Because of the summer league, we’re both trying to throw teams together at the minute and until the league settles down, you can’t really take anything for granted.”
