St Mirren cup win was better than Motherwell, says Airdrie boss

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Airdrie player/boss Rhys McCabe says their stunning 2-0 win over 10-man St Mirren blows last year’s victory over Motherwell “out of the water”.And he says all he could ask of their players was that they gave themselves a chance of progressing out of the Premier Sports Cup Group E.The Diamonds head to Arbroath on Saturday knowing that a draw might be enough to qualify, and a win is enough to win the group.Goals from Justin Devenny and Kyan Gunn gave Airdrie a comfortable win over their Premiership opponents, who had Greg Kiltie shown a straight red card in 33 minutes for a crude challenge on Euan Deveney.“It gives us a chance, that’s all we could ask for at the start of the game," said McCabe.“We’re not in control of anything else, we’re only in control of our performance.“The main thing is that we had that positive win over Motherwell last year, but I think we blew that out the water with the way we played.“It gives us a chance, that’s all we could ask, and we knew that before the game, what kind of game it was, and what was at stake.“I said to the boys to leave nothing out on the pitch.“We’ve given ourselves a real chance, so we can go into the game on Saturday and really enjoy it.”While some managers may downplay an opponent being sent off, McCabe says he cheerfully exploited Saints’ disadvantage.He said: “I think the red card changes the dynamic of the game, in terms of knocking the ball about, having that extra player.“We made sure that at half-time the sole focus was on ‘we’ve got 11 players, they’ve only got 10’ and that played to our advantage, especially in the midfield.“If we can work our passes in behind the back four and the midfield four, we can hurt them.”McCabe says Airdrie are starting to reap the benefits