Notman: ‘We can’t be much worse!’

Steven Notman hopes not having a match this Saturday due to the international break can help refresh the team after a ‘lethargic’ performance against Edinburgh City.

The ‘Gers came from a goal down to clinch victory at Meadowbank thanks to a brace from Jordyn Sheerin but Notman, who was involved in both goals – winning the penalty before playing an excellent through ball for Sheerin’s winner – echoed manager John Coughlin’s assessment of the game

“Very, very, very poor,” the midfielder told the official website after the game. “They deserved to win but at the end of the day we just have to take the positives – and the three points was probably the only thing!

“We just looked lethargic. I don’t know what was wrong with the boys. We can’t be any worse than that so we just have to take the three points as a positive. We’ve got a couple of weeks now to see what we did wrong, speak between ourselves, then look forward to the home match against Elgin.

“The wee rest I think will be good for us. I can’t speak for the other boys but I got married in the summer and I missed quite a lot of pre-season because I had other things on and, for the size of our squad, it looked like a long pre-season.

“I’m not making excuses but that’s maybe taken a wee bit of a toll on us so with no match on Saturday, hopefully it will refresh us.”

With seven points from their first four league games, Coughlin’s men sit fourth in Scottish League Two – and Notman admitted him and his team-mates are relatively happy with the start that’s been made.

“If you looked at the games, I’d say Forfar and Arbroath will be up there at the end of the season so I reckon seven points out of 12 isn’t bad,” he added. “We probably would’ve taken that at the start of the season.

“We’ve played alright in a couple of games. Against Forfar in the first half we weren’t good but at the end of the day, we’re in the top four so we just have to keep grinding out results if we’re not playing well.”

By Martin Inglis