Inverness Caley Thistle deserved win, admits Stenhousemuir boss Gary Naysmith

The Warriors suffered a second successive William Hill League One defeat after Paul Allan’s late winner four minutes from time sealed the three points for the visitors.

"I think based on their second half performance, Inverness deserved to win the game,” boss Naysmith said. “I was really disappointed with how we played. In the first half, there wasn’t too much in it.

“We didn’t use the conditions to our advantage as much as we should have. Inverness used it well in the second half and pinned up as back and we couldn’t really get back out.

“We were defending for 45 minutes. We had one or two that we got away with and they had one disallowed. You do think ‘maybe we can just can hang in here’ but it didn’t happen.

“We concede a really poor goal direct from a corner kick. That’s a couple of things that have happened in recent weeks that I am not happy about – and I have spoken to the group about that and we will work on that in training.”

The former Scotland full-back could only name three outfields on the bench for the match, and Naysmith confessed that the lack of options available cost Stenhousemuir dearly.

He added: “In theory it would have been the type of game that you probably would bring on another defender to go to a five (at the back). We’ve dealt with injuries well but this was the first time we didn’t have the ideal positions on the bench.

“And that is nothing against Euan (Cameron), Ross (Taylor) or Blair (Alston). I had to try and make substitutions with attacking players. We couldn’t really shore it up at the back.”

Third-placed Stenhousemuir now make the short trip to Alloa Athletic this Saturday hoping to bounce back against Andy Graham’s side.