East Fife boss Gary Naysmith has warned his players they face dropping out of the play-off spots sooner rather than later if they deliver displays like the one against Berwick in midweek.
The Fifers effectively squandered their game in hand when they were comprehensively beaten 4-1 at home on Tuesday night, although they remain in fourth spot heading into this weekend’s round of fixtures.
However, Naysmith says he was “hurting” after watching his players put in an insipid performance and knows they need to improve when they welcome Montrose to Bayview tomorrow.
“We’ve got six games to go and we’re still in pole position to get fourth, but you don’t need to be brains of Britain to realise that if we don’t buck our ideas up we’re not going to get it,” he commented.
“If we play like we did against Berwick, we’d be lucky to win another game this season.
“The fans weren’t happy and they came looking for us to build on Saturday’s performance, but we didn’t.
“So we need to get to the bottom of it and get that out of our system.
“We’ve got to learn from it.
“Obviously it wasn’t good enough and Berwick deserved their win.
“They looked the hungrier team and we looked as though we were going through the motions as if we’ve already secured fourth place.
“Berwick looked like they had a cause and for every positive we had on Saturday against Arbroath the opposite negative applied.
“We were second to every ball, they looked hungrier and fitter and caused us problems.
“We never won first balls, we never won second balls and if I’m being honest we were lucky it was only 4-1.”