Boss tells players to toughen up

Albion Rovers boss Brian Kerr has called for his players do the “dirty side of the game”as they slipped to defeat against Stranraer.

The Blues led in eight minutes when Hearts loan kid Angus Beith tapped in Stephen Okoh’s cross. Rovers levelled on 52 minutes with Alan Reid’s back-post finish.

Visiting captain Scott Robertson then netted in the 74th minute before Beith scored his second in 89 minutes.

The Coatbridge team now have just one win from their last 12 league games and former Scotland cap Kerr has called for an improvement.

“We have had a lot of possession and didn’t do anything with it,”he told the Advertiser.“The weather was bad, but we were keeping the ball. We need to do the dirty side of the game better, and every week we seem to shoot ourselves in the foot.

“It’s a bad result and we need to turn things around quickly.”

The injury list is stacking up for Rovers with Jason Marr injured in the warm-up last weekend and Reid also set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines.

“If Alan’s injury is as bad as we first feared it could be six to eight weeks,”said Kerr.

“Ideally we would have had Ross Perry, Jason and Alan starting for us every week in defence but we have never had that chance.

“We don’t want to make excuses, but we need these guys on the pitch rather than watching from the stands.”