Paul Jaconelli admitted that his Livingston Women side appeared to still be in pre-season mode during their 3-2 Championship South loss against Gartcairn, writes Angus McGregor.
But the boss admits he relishes the chance to put things right as the two sides face off again this weekend in League Cup action.
The Lionesses fought valiantly to come back from two goals down as Shannon Mulligan fired home from 20 yards before Jess Murphy met a Rachel Walkingshaw corner for the equaliser.
However, the hosts suffered late agony as Gartcairn netted the winner with 10 minutes left on the clock as Livi suffered a first defeat of the season, leaving Jaconelli admitting his side needs to be much sharper if they are to up their performances.
He commented: “I thought we had quite a bit of the game but we’re still pre-season scrappy.
“Our passing isn’t up to where we expect it to be and that allowed them to come into the game. You could see in spells where our usual levels are but it just wasn’t enough, it’s still a bit pre-season mode.
“I thought we did enough to get something from the game but we need to up our levels for the whole game and hopefully we’ll do so as the season goes on.”
The Lionesses do have the perfect opportunity to put things right against Gartcairn as they square off this weekend in the cup and for their boss it’s more about getting the squad up to speed rather than making drastic changes to the personnel or system as they look to bounce back from the loss.
He commented: “I spoke to them all at full-time and we all know we have to be much better.
“We’ve got a great opportunity playing them again this weekend and hopefully, we can turn it around.
“When you’ve played a team once, you can overdo the strategies and things like that. We’ll review the game but I think our main issues were our own tidiness and quality as well as sharpness at times.
“It’s only the third game of the season so we’ve got plenty of time on our side and we’ll look to get those points back as soon as possible.”
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