Paul Hartley wants his Cove Rangers side to show more fight – after seeing them surrender to a 5-0 loss to Ayr United.
Cove have now shipped 13 goals in the three games since Hartley returned to the dugout at the start of the month.
Josh Mullin ran riot at the Balmoral Stadium, scoring twice and setting up two others, with Hartley unimpressed with how his side failed to lay a glove on Ayr.
“It’s a very sore one. Every mistake we made got punished,” said Hartley. “We were too passive and didn’t show enough determination and enough fight.
“You can’t teach that. Whatever you did in the past is gone. It’s what you do in the future.
“The three games I’ve been in we haven’t played that well. We had a wee spell against Raith Rovers but that’s not enough. We’re in a position at the bottom of the league where we’re in a fight.
“You have to lift yourself sometimes, it doesn’t always have to come from the manager.
‘We need to hit the ground running’
“We’ve done a lot of work but when you cross the white line, you’re out of control of it (as a manager).”
Cove have brought in six players since Hartley returned – Tony Weston, Jason Naismith, Scott Fox, Declan Glass, Brody Paterson and Miko Virtanen – with all of them featuring on Friday night.
But Hartley concedes the squad as it is will not be good enough to mount a survival fight in the Championship.
“We need to hit the ground running – you don’t get a lot of time. We’ve brought some new players in but we’ve had to.
“We’ll try to do more before Tuesday because we need to. The squad is not good enough at this moment in time and we’ve got to accept that.”
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