Managers Post Stranraer

01/03/14: JJ:- "you can't defend like that and expect to win"

Listen to Jim Jefferies post match reaction

It was a very frustrated Jim Jefferies who spoke after witnessing his side lose 3-1 to his closest rivals Stranraer.

"If you look at the game we probably dominated large parts of it, especially in the second half. They went up the park and scored, the first time up the park defenders and midfield let players get behind them. The first shot at goal in the second half they have scored.

"We said the next goal was important but you cannot give it away as simple as that. The opening 15 minutes of the first half were a joke. Morris hesitates and almost costs us a goal, then he gets the wrong side of the player on the right hand side and almost costs us a goal. How many chances does he want to clear it? Then he goes and pulls the player down for a stonewall penalty. We gave them another couple of opportunities and coming off matches with two clean sheets and then going back to making it easy for the opposition.

"We gifted the second goal after being on top. We should have scored ourselves from the one that came back off the goalkeeper and Shankland hit it wide. We hit the bar from a great effort from Husband. We had shaken off the first fifteen minutes and got ourselves back in the game and they got another goal totally against the run of play.

"What you are doing is making it easy for Stranraer. Credit to them, they have battled away. They are a big, strong, physical side and the last thing you want to do is give them goals of a start. They are not going to give it up easily. They are well organised. They defend very solidly and we put them under a lot of pressure. We probably had as many chances as Stranraer but we didn't take them.

"Shankland is normally reliable, he missed a couple of chances. There were a tremendous amount of corners that came in right on top of the goalkeeper. I will tell you something, if that had been at the other end Stranraer would have scored. You cannot ask boys like Husband and Forbes to put in quality balls like they did in the second half and not get on at least one of them.

Ross Forbes v Stranraer

"All told it was most unlike us. You are making games hard. We talked about it before the game that of our run, this would be the hardest game. They are up there on merit, they have not been easy to beat - they gave Rangers a fright and Inverness a fright here so we knew that this would be a tough match.

"The fact that we have beaten them three times before is going to be motivation for them. This was a big game for them, we are still in a great position don't get me wrong, but especially with the results today, we could have virtually clinched it today.

"Stranraer are not going to make it easy for you, they are going to be tough. They started the game well but we were sloppy and silly, indecisive and hesitant. All we did was give the other team a lift. It doesn't matter what level of football you play, if you keep doing things like that the other team will certainly take advantage. Credit to Stranraer they did that.

"You are always chasing it. We talked at half time about upping the tempo at the start of the second half. They made a good start which we did but we had to be conscious to not lose another goal. That would have made it doubly tough. The next goal was important for us, because I think it changes the whole game. We have been in that position ourselves, we lost one at Brechin and suddenly from coasting it two nil a goal back suddenly changes the whole momentum of the game.

"Our plan in the second half was to get one early and I said if it doesn't even come early, keep going but make sure we don't make it easy by giving anything away, but we did. It was just a ball in behind and we allowed them to cross it into the box and their No. 8 has walked into the box without any of the midfield players tracking him. He knocked it down and the No10 swivelled and was on his own to put it past the goalkeeper.

"You just can't defend like that and expect to win games. We have been guilty of doing that a lot this season but just lately I thought we were showing signs of making sure that it was going to be tougher. Somebody said to me "how can we go from defending really well against Ayr United when we never gave them a sniff."? Arbroath never had a sniff in midweek but now we come down here and give them presents. They were good enough to take advantage of them."

Listen to Stranraer manager Steven Aitken