By John Gisbey

DRIVING through to Alloa on Saturday I personally wasn’t sure what to expect other than that there would be a series of substitutes and possibly trialists being used by both sides.

The manager stated that pre-season results were not important and it was important to get match fitness. Therefore, I guess that was the main thing to take from the one-nil defeat.

The game was played as a typical pre-season match and to be honest it is very difficult to make assessments or judgements on some of the players we saw on Saturday.

The one definite positive was the performance of the centre midfield trialist as he looked a very tidy player and the fact he had been at both Celtic and Burnley previously would suggest he certainly has something about him.

The one negative point amongst the quite sizeable travelling support was the rumour about Dougie Imrie being handed a lower budget than last season.

If that is the case then it is very difficult to see us improving on last season’s league placing as we were continually reminded we had one of the lowest budgets in the league.

Time will tell.