Wardlaw ready to ring the changes

Sep 28 2011 by Kenny Smith, Rutherglen Reformer

CAMBUSLANG Rangers boss Alan Wardlaw has been giving his players a few days to relax as they try to rediscover their winning form.

After a good start to the season, the Lang’s fine form as fizzled out in recent weeks, and the side has failed to find the net in the last couple of games.

But Alan, who’s had assistant Billy Campbell and coach Alan Prosser on holiday in the last couple of weeks, has been soldiering on by himself.

He said: “With Billy and Prosser on holiday I’ve taken the last four sessions myself so they got smashed on Tuesday and I gave them a very strong, heavy stamina session in the gym with some circuit training

“We had a lighter session on Thursday, with seven-a-sides all night at K-Park in East Kilbride, and the feedback was the boys enjoyed it, they felt it went quickly.

“They’re now expecting to get rattled on a Tuesday, but they don’t realise on Thursday there’s a lot of disguised running there, and we brought in some fun with a good old tourney.

“I’m not a firm believer in smashing them after a defeat, or rewarding them if you win.

“At our level you’ve got to maintain the level of fitness, I just feel we had a very heavy and intense pre-season and that dropped off because of the midweek games. We looked very fit in the first few games but aren’t looking the same now.

“You will have players who retain their fitness because they’re playing but the other half won’t as they’re not playing, so they’ve halved their effort levels as a result because there’s not as many training sessions if we’ve playing.

“We’ve returned to a more intensive regime and hopefully that will pay off.”

Alan has also made changes to the playing pool over the last week.

He explained: “John Fisher has been released, along with Tony McDermott. Tony and John were on the fringes of things and hadn’t nailed the position. I’m of the mind they should be playing regularly and there’s no point having them on the bench as it creates resentment if they don’t get a game, and they get rusty.

“We still have decisions to make on three or four others.

“But we’ve brought in Gerry O’Connell, who’s ex-East Stirling and did pre-season with Pollok.

“He’s an attacking midfielder or can play up front.

“We’re retaining the majority of the squad, as we’ve got the type of players we need but we need to use them in the right way.”

This Saturday Cambuslang Rangers are away in Scottish Cup action.

Alan said: “We’ve Benburb away. I think they might fancy their chances as they’ve had a reasonable start to the season and it’s well-documented we’re not firing on all cylinders.

“However they might be surprised by the set-up we’re going to turn up with. The boys have the bit between their teeth now, but there were a few wake-up calls, and they’ll see it when we play at the weekend.

“I fully intend to move it round, players bring different assets to different positions.

“We need to have players coming from midfield who are attack-minded and will freshen it up, so it augurs well and I’m looking forward to Saturday.”