Ryan Strachan admits confidence in the Peterhead camp is low – but there are signs of progress in their performances.
Peterhead were beaten 2-0 on Wednesday night by FC Edinburgh, on the back of two positive league results against Kelty Hearts and Dunfermline.
They find themselves at the bottom of League One and have struggled with player availability all season, despite signing 20 players.
The Blue Toon were only able to name four substitutes in the capital, with 10 players out through injury and two, Loran Venrooy and Enock Walusimbi, still awaiting work permits.
“It’s a remarkable situation we find ourselves in,” said Strachan. “We’ve got 28, 29 bodies and the whole season we’ve been chasing our tail with players and experience.
“We’ve been a bit unlucky with the Hamish (Ritchie) situation and key players like Andy McCarthy and Russell (McLean). There’ll be a time they’ll come back and we’ll get stronger. Week on week we’re getting better.
“The confidence in the camp is quite low. But the performances are coming. We ground out a good result against Kelty and thought we might build some momentum against Elgin. We didn’t do that so went back to square one.
“We then dig a great result out against Dunfermline and albeit we didn’t get the result against Edinburgh, we can take lot of positives from it.
“A win is coming soon. Confidence is low but it’s getting better.”
Strachan was one of those summer arrivals, returning to Balmoor after five years at Cove Rangers.
Latterly at Cove he had been bothered by a long-standing Achilles issue, which was finally addressed with an operation in pre-season.
He has started the last eight games and feels like he is getting back where he wants to be.
“I haven’t had a pre-season and I’ve had an operation,” said Strachan. “I hadn’t played since February and I’m one of the guys that’s been chasing fitness.
“I’ve been quite fortunate with the training programme and playing a lot of minutes. The fitness coach gave me six games and I’m a wee bit more than that now. I’m just about getting up to speed.
“I was fortunate enough for five years at Cove that when I was fit enough to put a shirt on, I played. I was grateful for that.
“The time came that I had to move on and I’m now at a club I’ve been at and know really well. I’m grateful for the opportunity and hopefully I can reward them with getting fit and putting some good performances in on the pitch.”