Stenhousemuir aim to dazzle Diamonds

The Warriors manager felt his side were much too tentative in the first half of their Scottish Cup tie against Premiership St Johnstone.

However they gave a better account of themselves after the interval.

Ferguson admitted: “The minimum we wanted to do was for the players to put in a performance which they could take some pride from and in the first half we didn’t do that.

“We were almost too tentative in the game and allowed St Johnstone to dictate too much of the play in that first period.

“But in the second period I felt as though we acquitted ourselves well and we played the way we were hoping we were going to play from the start.

“Individually and collectively we competed a lot better. But the disappointing thing was we never did that from the start of the game.”

Airdrie arrive at Ochilview still smarting from a 5-0 thumping by Stenny on their own ground the last time the sides met.

But Ferguson would settle for a repeat of the single-goal victory his side achieved in their last league outing against Stranraer which lifted them off the foot of the League One table, particularly if they can produce the same type of performance.

The Warriors boss said: “Stranraer for me has been the best performance of the season, even better than the Airdrie game even though the scoreline was completely different. I thought we were magnificent that day and we’ve got to take the confidence from that performance into this weekend.

“The lesson we take into this weekend is that we can’t be too passive in games. We need to be far more aggressive in the way we play, both with and without the ball.

“When we do that, and we did that in the second half at St Johnstone so we’re capable of doing that against very good opposition, then we can go and cause teams problems which we have showed against our opponents [Airdrie] already this season.”