John McGlynn outlines second phase of Falkirk rebuild after 'developing' campaign

Rhys McCabe’s Diamonds finished third in League One, seven points behind Falkirk in second, but they blew away the Bairns over two legs, winning 6-2 at home before edging out a 1-0 win on Saturday, thanks to a Gabby McGill goal just before half time.

The boss, 61, admitted that the Bairns failing to turn on the big occasions cost them dearly.

“We have had two real kicks in the teeth,” he said. “We have put so much into the season and I feel like we deserved something out of it. The players certainly do but we have came up short.

“From what could have been an amazing season it has turned out that the season has been more of a developing one from last season.

“We have come on a hell of a lot since last year. There were 13-14 players under contract when we came into the club and there was only a set amount of budget left.

“We brought players in and we did really well getting into the group stages of the Premier Sports Cup.

“The league started slowly but slowly we clawed ourselves back into and we finished seven points above a really good Airdrie side. Our goals against column was way too high however.

“But it is all about timing. When you get to the play-offs you need to in-form, just like Airdrie were particularly on Tuesday night, but we did shoot ourselves in the foot too often this season.

“Over the course we have played some great football and entertained. We have had a great Scottish Cup run that has brought in great finance into the club when it really needed it.

“It will be a long summer brooding over all of these things (the disappointments) but we need to use these moments to come back in pre-season stronger. Players will go and we will make sure we are not in this situation next year.

“We need to sort out right-back and we need to sort out the goalkeeping situation. We’ve made an announcement already (Alfredo Agyeman joining on a pre-contract from Kelty Hearts) and there will be change. We have another pre-contract signing nearly completed.

“It will be the second phase of the re-build, in the summer we only had so much to work with.”

On the performance, which saw Falkirk punished once again for their poor quality in boxes, McGlynn added: “We had to score first today.

"We put a lot of effort into it. Callumn Morrison has had a decent shot saved early on and Liam Henderson had a couple of headers that he should have done better with.

“Brad (McKay) has a great opportunity to score. He has to score, I don’t know how he puts it over from there. These are the fine margins when the stakes are high.

“We had to score first but the damage was already done (from the first leg) and we were looking for a miracle. I can’t fault the players effort on the day but we couldn’t get a good finish on the day.

“Airdrie set up like we thought they would – the low block made it difficult to break them down and defended their box well again and when that happens it is difficult.

“We needed that goal early to get the crowd right behind and to see if it brought any nerves into Airdrie’s game. We came up short and we were punished for one mistake from a long throw.

“That burst our bubble. We did keep going and as I said I can’t fault the effort on show, we just didn't have that quality and we didn’t do anything worthy of a goal.”