ALLOA star Kyle McAusland says the whole squad owe gaffer Danny Lennon a big performance after the disappointment of their 3-0 defeat to league rivals Livingston last weekend.

The Wasps boss travels back to familiar territory on Saturday as he takes his men to face his former side St Mirren, and the former Rangers youngster feels there is no better place for them to deliver.

Ian Murray's men have had a mixed start to the season and find themselves only one place and two points above the Wee County men heading into their clash and the versatile defender reckons it is the perfect game for them to put things right.

McAusland told Advertiser sport: "The Livingston defeat is tougher to take because everyone expects ourselves and them to be battling it out at the bottom end of the table so you have to look to win these games. With that said I do not believe it was a 3-0 game and that flatters them a little. Everyone will be doom and gloom now about our chances of survival now, but at the end of the day it is only three points and there is a long way to go, so we certainly won’t be panicking. We just need to put the poor things right and look to go and take something from St Mirren now. It is another game where people will expect us to lose, but these games against the bigger sides are probably the easier ones to play in because we will get time and space to play football. They have more to lose being the heavy favourites, but they haven’t really hit the heights themselves yet this season so I am sure it will be a closer game than it might have been had they been flying high on top form. The boys would love to go there and get a result for the gaffer. He will be going back to his old team with a point to prove just like any player does and so we are looking forward to it and hopefully we can get him a result. We played our worst game this season against Livingston so we owe the gaffer a performance and hopefully we can put that right in paisley."

The Clackmannanshire outfit have now scored only eight goals across eleven games in all competitions this season, but while that figure doesn't make for the best reading, McAusland is convinced they will find the goal trail as the team and especially the strikers continue to gain an understanding.

Alloa have had a poor run of second half capitulations this season and McAusland believes that they must look to eradicate that pattern as a matter of urgency.

He said: "I think the second goal comes at a key point for them and that has happened to us a few weeks in a row now, so that for me is the main thing we need to learn from and look to cut out. It seems every time we have good spells in games at moment then we concede. It is a frustrating spell for us in terms of goalscoring and I think that is putting more pressure on the defence as a result, but it is certainly not panic stations yet. We will try to chip in with goals from all over the pitch, but the strikers like everything else this season, are just gonna take a bit of time. Duffy for example, has already had man of the match last week, and I am convinced that as soon as he gets one then he will add a lot more. I think everything will click into place for us at the one time and hopefully when it does we can go on a wee run."

The 22-year-old insists the Wasps can still climb the SPFL Championship table, but says the whole team realise they will have to battle for every single point.

McAusland added: "This is a tough league and we are well aware of the difficulties facing us. It is so difficult to put a decent run together because every week is such a competitive game. There are no easy games and so everything we get, we are going to have to earn the hard way, but we need to start picking up points sooner rather than later."