Buckie Thistle’s Andrew MacAskill says they need to stop leaking late goals.
The Jags slipped to a fourth defeat in their last five Highland League outings on Saturday with Conor Gethins’ goal in the third minute of stoppage time giving Formartine United a 2-1 win.
It was the second time in the last three weeks the Moray men have coughed up a winner in the closing stages, with Fraserburgh striking late to beat them 3-2 on December 21.
MacAskill, who drew Buckie level from the penalty spot with eight minutes left at the weekend, says the trend can’t continue.
The midfielder said: “There’s no doubting the quality of the squad – but it’s fine margins – and right now we seem to be on the wrong side of those fine margins.
“We lost a late goal at Fraserburgh to lose after battling away and it was the same against Formartine, we battled away and lost a late goal.
“In that sense it’s really frustrating for everyone, but there are still lots of games this season and we need to bounce back and win them.
“In both games it’s probably been individual errors, but it’s hard to pinpoint why it happens.
“The reality is that if we played better over the piece it wouldn’t come down to late goals.”
Reflecting further on Saturday’s defeat MacAskill admits it was a poor performance over the 90 minutes from Thistle.
He added: “It was very frustrating to lose on Saturday and everybody was very disappointed after the game.
“But we didn’t play well, when we equalised late on – at the very least we should hold on for a draw.
“Then the goal we lose at the end isn’t good either and it’s a bad result for us.”
Although the Jags have been hit with a number of postponements and been involved in cup competitions in recent months, after a win over Wick Academy on December 28 you have to go back to October 12 for their previous victory on league duty.
Having made a bright start to the season MacAskill wants Buckie to go on a similar winning run and try to improve on their current position of fifth in the table.
The former Turriff United player said: “Results have been a bit up and down.
“Since October we’ve played five league games and four of them have been defeats.
“That’s not good enough and it’s something we need to rectify.
“We have a run of games coming up that we need to win.
“We’ve got to go on a run now and try to push up the table.
