Vale of Leven gaffer Brian Brown was left frustrated at both ends of the park, as the Millburn side suffered three consecutive defeats.
Wednesday night saw high-flying Wishaw defeat Brown’s men 4-0 away from home, before Evariste Bembo’s second minute penalty was all that separated the Vale and St Anthony’s on Saturday.
After speaking to the Lennox before the Vale travelled to face Petershill, and found themselves on the end of a 4-0 defeat, Brown said he is desperate for his players to show more composure in both boxes.
He said: “I actually think we played better against Wishaw than we did against the Ants. For about 40 minutes of the Wishaw game we were probably looking the more likely to take the three points.
“Then we lost two goals right before half-time through not defending set-pieces properly.
“In the second-half we missed another barrowload of chances. They had two and they took them.
“In the Ants game we lost a crazy penalty with 30 seconds gone and after that probably should’ve scored four or five, including missing a penalty of our own.
“We totally controlled the game.
“We gave St Anthony’s something to hold onto. As soon as they scored they went into game management mode. They really frustrated us.
“That’s credit to them. They defended really well and their goalkeeper had some excellent saves.”
This week the Vale welcome struggling Yoker Athletic to the Millburn on Saturday (August 14).
And Brown is expecting a tough game.
He continued: “We need to just dust ourselves down and go again.
“There were some angry people after the Ants game, me being one of them. They’ve been told that wasn’t acceptable.
“Yoker haven’t had a good start, but I thought they would’ve been really strong.
“We have to be really wary of their threat as we try to get ourselves back on track again.”
