Smith blames ‘naivety’ after City fall to Warriors

Brechin City manager Barry Smith bemoaned his team’s naivety after he watched them slump to their fourth successive defeat.

The Glebe Park outfit were beaten 2-1 by basement club Stenhousemuir to close the gap on City, who sit immediately above them in the League One table, to just a single point.

“I don’t think that either team did enough to win the match with a draw probably a fairer result,” said Smith.

“I can’t fault the players for their workrate and effort but we’re a wee bit naive.

“We give away silly free-kicks and we switch off for that split second which is costing us.

“We had five against two in the box leading up to Stenhousemuir’s penalty and although I thought that the award was soft we shouldn’t even be making the challenge.”

“At the moment we’re getting severely punished for every mistake we’re making.

“Naivety and bad decision-making are letting us down but we’ll continue to impress on the players the importance of making the correct decisions as split-second mistakes are costing us goals.”

The Warriors grabbed the opener from the penalty spot in the seventh minute after Jordan Tapping’s rash challenge on Mark McGuigan, with McGuigan himself stepping up to sink the spot-kick.

City fought back and levelled the match a couple of minutes before the break when Jordan Sinclair fired the ball home from close-range after an Andy Jackson shot had been parried into his path by former City keeper Graeme Smith.

There wasn’t much to choose between the teams in an evenly balanced second half but Stenny made the vital breakthrough 12 minutes from time when substitute Alan Cook was on hand to slot home a Conner Duthie cross.