'They wanted to win it more than us' - Stenhousemuir boss Gary Naysmith admits he was left angered by Albion Rovers loss

Despite other results going their way with East Fife and Forfar Athletic losing, the Ochilview club are now still three points away from the top four after the defeat, thanks to a double from Joe Bevan and a Jamie Leslie header. Sean Crighton grabbed the goal for Naysmith’s side from a corner on 55 minutues.

“I am hurting as much as the fans are,” the boss said of the result speaking to the Falkirk Herald. “Since coming into the club, myself and Brown (Ferguson) and the group as a whole have done a hell of a lot of good work giving us a real chance of getting into the play-offs, but over the last four games the results haven’t been good enough and it is as simple as that.

“Actually when you break it down into performances, two of them were okay and two of them were what has killed us. Against the league winners Stirling Albion, we did well and we should have held on for a draw. The only disappointing thing was that we conceded that late goal. Against Bonnyrigg, we played well but just lacked a cutting edge.

“The real two disappointments have been Albion Rovers and Elgin City away; both teams bottom of the league at that point, bobbly pitches, fighting for their lives – when you reflect on it afterwards it does feel like they wanted to win more than us.

“That is disappointing because we are trying to achieve something ourselves, we want to get into the play-offs and win promotion. But on both occasions, the home team looked like they wanted it more than us, and that was what brought about my real anger from Saturday.”

Naysmith also was left irked by the manner of the goals conceded against Sandy Clark’s side, with Rovers’ key men Bevan and Reilly being afforded too much space to combine twice for two goals, including the opening strike, which was a ‘trademark’ Rovers goal according to the boss.

He added: “I showed them a video clip in training on Thursday of the exact same scenario happening in another game. I showed them it on the tactics board.

“What I asked the guys to do on the pitch to stop that simply wasn’t done and we conceded a goal because of it.

“I am not pointing the finger at the players, but simply saying that if I didn’t show them that then they would have the right to say ‘I wasn’t aware they were going to do that’ but we did.

“I highlighted that Bevan and Reilly were both key players for them. That was a frustration too but actually the other two goals were even poorer.

“We scored a good goal from Sean (Crighton) to make it 1-1 and from there on in you are wanting to go on and win the game.

“But when you look at the two second-half goals we gave, you are never going to win a game of football against anyone ever. Cheap goals have been a recurring theme for the team this season.”

Stenhousemuir now travel to Stranraer this weekend as they look to get back to winning ways, and hold into their slim hopes of a play-off spot.

Ahead of that match, Naysmith said: “We have to focus on ourselves. We need to focus on the here and now. We haven’t won in four games and we need to put that right.

“If we put that right on Saturday and a result goes our way then we can take it into the last game and see what happens.

“To do that, we’ll need to be miles better than we have been in our last two away performances.”