Alloa star Michael Doyle: We must look to win last season to topple Hibs

Alloa have endured a difficult run of nine games without a win in recent weeks that has seen them crash to five straights defeats, but the popular defender insists they CAN still turn things around and hopes they can rip up the form book to shock Alan Stubbs' men this weekend.

Doyle told Advertiser sport: “Of course we know it is still a long, hard season ahead where a lot can change very quickly in such a competitive league, but we must start picking up points quickly and the Hibs game would be the perfect place. There is still a togetherness in the dressing room and this is a frustrating spell for us at the minute because we are always working on things, but we maybe just need that one result or bit of luck to turn things around and instill new belief in us. People looking at our last two results will probably be thinking we will be lambs to the slaughter against Hibs, but we are happy for them to think that. We can take advantage of the pressure all being on them as the favourites. It is almost a no-lose game for us because people expect us to get beat and so we can use it as huge motivation going forward if we can get a result. One big result can change our whole season and why not against Hibs, you never know in football. The fans deserve better from us right now and so it is important to deliver that for them on Saturday. Hibs will come out and attack us, but we know we can at least match them on our day and I believe we can get a result. We only have to look back to last season when we beat them at home. They're maybe a different team now in some areas, but they've also lost their star player in Scott Allan and they've already lost at Dumbarton so we know it can be done.”

Doyle says there has no case for the defence in recent weeks as his side have gifted their opponents the upper hand in each of their previous five contests and he hopes a return to a more settled back four can coincide with an upturn in their fortunes.

The former Celtic trainee believes that fixing their leaky defence is more of a priority than solving their current crisis in attack because that has been the basis for all their success over the last few seasons.

He said: “The Falkirk loss was a sore one to take because all of the goals were very avoidable and once again we have been our own worst enemies. I feel like although Falkirk played really well and you can't take anything away from them, the defeat was mainly down to our mistakes. We haven't really had a settled defence yet and that is a big issue for us. Players and positions are constantly changing so I think it has been tough to get to know everyone and maybe strike up partnerships. Over the last four years with the success we have had, we have always been tough to beat first and foremost so that is something we need to rediscover. Being compact and hard to beat is the key for us. People have spoken about our lack of goals, but for me we need to stop leaking goals first and foremost because if we don't concede then we can't lose the game. If we sort that out first then the goals will soon follow. We were unfortunate to lose Jason Marr and Colin Hamilton last weekend and that meant players having to play out of position so it would be nice to get a run of games with our full strength backline in place. You have to feel for the manager because in the previous group we had here, there was almost 7 or 8 players who would be automatic picks every week, but this season no one has really produced any consistency to earn that.”

The 25-year-old admits that last weekend's defeat at Falkirk was well below the standards expected of them and that is something the whole squad is determined to change.

Doyle added: “Falkirk would probably expect to beat Alloa at home more often than not, but we should not be getting beat in that manner. We have to be better than that. It is hard to put a finger on exactly where we have been going wrong, but I am not one to make excuses. We simply have not been good enough and that has to change quickly. We always knew we would be involved in a dog fight this season, but there is no getting away from the fact that we are disappointed to be down there. It is more the way we find ourselves there. We have lost out in a lot of close-run games, but for the last two weeks our games have been over by half time and so we feel like we have let ourselves down. The fans especially deserve better than that and so hopefully we can turn this around and make them proud.”