Under-pressure Stirling Albion boss Alan Maybury insists his side must toughen up at the back if they are to turn around a poor run of form and keep up their promotion ambitions.
The Binos have slipped to just one win in their last 11 matches across all competitions after Kieran Shanks’s second-half strike kept up Peterhead’s perfect record on the season against Stirling.
Stirling fought back into the game twice at Balmoor, with Adam Brown’s ninth goal of the season and Callum Crane’s goal four minutes after the break looking to seal a battling point until Shanks’s late intervention.
The poor run has led to questions about the Irishman’s position, but he expressed positivity over the display against the Blue Toon while admitting defensive flaws.
Maybury said: “We played well and between the boxes we were good – we scored two good goals and had a couple cleared away which we should have scored and I feel we should have had a penalty as I think there was 100 per cent contact on Callum Crane.
“To book him for simulation on that is just a wrong decision.
“While we were good going forward, the goals were very preventable and the story is we’re having to work hard for our goals and conceding far too many soft ones to the opposition.
“There have been too many goals conceded generally by us this season and that’s definitely the focus we need to have going forward.
“I still think we’re not a million miles away and we’re just on the wrong side of things at the moment.”
The January revamp at Forthbank continued with teenage Rangers defender Leyton Grant signing on loan to the end of the season – and the 18-year-old was pitched right into the battle at Balmoor to shore up the leaky Binos backline.
He joined fellow new signings Robbie McNab and Ryan Shanley – and the performances of the new arrivals is another area of hope for the Stirling boss in turning around their poor form.
“The new signings will definitely help us and I had no fears about putting into the side”, Maybury continued.
“I thought he was good when he played against us for Rangers B earlier in the season and he’s played for Scotland U19s where [Stirling goalkeeper coach] Callum Erskine has given us good reports.
“He’s a bit of a throwback in that he just wants to defend and a talker which is rare in a young boy. Once he finds his feet coming out of a B team into league football, then I think he’ll be a positive addition for us.”