JOHNSTONE Burgh manager Jamie McKim was left to rue missed chances on Saturday as his team suffered a 1-0 home defeat against Forth Wanderers.

A headed goal after 20 minutes was the difference between the sides at Keanie Park as Burgh failed to find a way past a Wanderers goalkeeper who was in fine form.

After the match, McKim told Gazette Sport: “I’m very disappointed with the result.

“With the greatest of respect to Forth, if you’re at home in the league then you are looking to win the game.

“The way games have went against Forth in previous seasons, we knew what was coming.

“We knew they would come and try and frustrate us, so the worst thing for us to do was be slack on the ball and give them opportunities to score.

“After that, they were quite happy to sit and try and contain us.

“If we had came away with a 2-1 or a 3-1 win, there couldn’t have been any complaints from Forth but they took their chance, so they completely deserved the three points.

“We had two golden chances and three or four other very good chances but it wasn’t to be.

“It was just one of those days. We’ll get back on the training pitch this week and work and go again on Saturday.”

The Burgh boss also cursed a lack of availability in his squad as he was forced to make several changes to his starting line-up.

He added: “The inconsistency of team selection is killing us.

“I’m unable to get the same team out on the pitch weekly.

“There’s loads of different scenarios and reasons why that’s happening, with injuries, Covid and work commitments, but for us to compete we need to have our best team on the park.

“I just haven’t had that.”

Next up for Burgh is a local derby with top-of-the-table Arthurlie – and McKim expects his players to relish the challenge of taking on their high-flying Barrhead rivals.

He explained: “I’ve said to the players that, if you can’t get yourself up for a game like this, which is a local derby, then you shouldn’t be playing football.

“The guys who didn’t play on Saturday surely need to look at this as an opportunity and get to training twice this week and work hard to get in the team.”

Kick-off at Dunterlie Park on Saturday is at 2pm.