Arbroath manager Paul Sheerin took a great deal of satisfaction from his team’s 4-2 derby win at Brechin but admitted that the Lichties, who trail East Fife and Airdrieonians by four points, are far from out of the woods and that a long, hard struggle for League One survival lies ahead.
“The last few weeks have been tough and it’s not a nice position to be in but today’s result gives us relief for a week but there’s still a long, long way to go and a lot of work to do.
“The players’ attitude was spot on today. We talked with them on Tuesday night and questioned their desire but I thought we got after Brechin from the start.
“Even at 3-2 we could have folded but we scored again shortly after Brechin scored, which knocked the stuffing from them.
“Today’s performance was a positive but we won’t get carried away with one result.
“However, if the players can take that level of desire and application into their remaining games, who knows what can happen.”
The Lichties got off to the perfect start when a mis-timed tackle by Gerry McLauchlan allowed Bobby Linn a clear run-in on goal and the winger made no mistake from around five yards out.
Linn took advantage of another error by City when Steven Jackson slipped to make it 2-0 after 22 minutes and, when centre-back Michael Travis powered home a header eight minutes into the second-half, it looked as though the visitors were coasting to victory.
However, City got themselves back into the game with an Andy Jackson goal four minutes later and, when Robert Thomson scored four minutes after that, it looked as if it would be game on.
However, Arbroath gave the perfect response and drove the final nail in City’s coffin when ex-Glebe Park striker Paul McManus headed home his side’s fourth and final goal four minutes later.
City manager Ray McKinnon was scathing about his side’s defensive inadequacies.
“We’re making the same mistakes week in, week out and the players have got to start taking responsibility,” he said.
“I was really hoping that we’d take maximum points from our last three games and we’ve ended up with zero, which is hugely frustrating.”
“To cap it all, we’ve suffered long-term injuries to Johnny Brown, Ewan Moyes and Garry Kenneth and we still have Paul McLean suspended for next week’s derby at Forfar so it doesn’t get any better.”
“However, we had to deploy youngsters Ryan Ferguson and Darren Petrie in the full-back positions after the injuries to Moyes, Brown and Kenneth and I thought that they were really excellent, which is the one positive to take from an otherwise very disappointing afternoon.”