Paul Hartley accepts his Cove Rangers side are in a dogfight to preserve their Championship status after a 3-0 loss to Ayr United.
It is now one win in 13 for Cove as they slipped to their fifth consecutive defeat at Somerset Park on Friday night.
Goals from Daire O’Connor and Dipo Akinyemi had Ayr 2-0 up at the break before Jayden Mitchell-Lawson rounded off the scoring in the second period.
Confidence is obviously at a low-point and there is a challenge now for Cove to drag themselves out of it.
“We’re making poor mistakes and getting punished for it,” said Hartley. “We’re not doing our jobs properly and when we concede, we look like the confidence goes out of the team.
“When we lose a goal, we don’t look like we’re going to get back in it. Mistakes are costing us – the first two goals, we gifted them.
“We know we’re in a dogfight. We’ve got six games to go to do something and fight our way out of it. We tried to go with a different system tonight to tighten things up.”
Victory for Arbroath at promotion-chasing Queen’s Park sees them leapfrog Cove in the Championship table. Bottom side Hamilton Accies also have two games in hand on the Aberdeen outfit.
They have six games remaining, with away trips to come against both of the teams down at the foot of the division with them.
Cove are paying for their under-performance at both ends of the park – not just defensively – as again they struggled to test the opposing goalkeeper.
“We’ve got to find something to get out of the mess we’re in,” added Hartley.
“It’s not easy – there’s no magic wand. It’s probably been the story of the season, in terms of our consistency.
“It’s experienced players who are making mistakes but it’s not just them. It’s the team as a whole.
“Even at the other end, there’s balls being flashed across the face of goal and we’ve got nobody there to put the ball in the back of the net.”
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