Defiant Stirling Albion boss Alan Maybury insists his side have what it takes to find the solutions to their inconsistent displays after a second defeat in four days against Spartans.
The Binos came into Tuesday night’s clash at Forthbank hopeful of keeping the back door shut after losing out in a back-and-forth contest with Edinburgh City.
But they delivered a poor display at both ends of the pitch as the capital side ran out 3-1 winners.
The performance left the disgruntled Albion faithful to boo their side off at both half-time and full-time as their hopes of contending in the top four took a fatal hit.
Maybury acknowledged the fury of the home support – but called for patience as he attempts to reverse a slump in form which has delivered just a pair of wins since October 5.
The Irishman said: “It’s just the inconsistency which is hard to explain.
“Since changing it up with the formation, we’ve scored nine goals including tonight but we’ve taken three points so we spoke to the players about that, tightening up, showing a bit of desire and we just didn’t see it enough.
“I walked into eight players here, three or four of them have moved on already, so it is a big rebuild that we’re doing here, there is a lot of good work going on.
“There is no divine right to be anywhere for any team, you have to earn it and historically, it’s been difficult here.
“Fans come out and want to see their team win and they want to see what they saw against Bonnyrigg and I understand that and we need to deliver something close to that every week but we can’t be up and down because that brings frustration.
“It’s not a problem – I’m frustrated, the fans are, the players are; we know we can do better, we have delivered better already so my job is trying to find the consistency of doing that more often.”
Blair Henderson’s opener just after the half-hour mark broke open a dull affair to that point and was quickly followed by a Jamie Dishington goal for Spartans, before Henderson took advantage of some half-hearted challenges to slam home his second.
Dale Carrick’s late consolation offered little comfort for Albion, who now face up to the test of a confident Elgin side – themselves off the back of a 3-0 midweek win over Bonnyrigg Rose.
“The first 20 minutes or so was a nothing game, both teams were structured and didn’t cause too many problems and then they get the goal and that should be the trigger to be positive and not let it affect us but we seemed to go the other way”, Maybury added.
“There shouldn’t be [fragility in the group]. It’s hard to explain because our preparation is consistent and how we train and everything else is consistency but it doesn’t show on the pitch.
“The same team has played the last three or four games and there have been positives going back to Bonnyrigg – a team we’ve struggled against and beat us up a few times – they didn’t get out of their half and that’s the sort of performances we’re expecting.”