BARRY FERGUSON said he was disappointed with his side’s reaction to going behind last night and is still looking to bring in some new faces.

Alloa lost their first competitive match under Ferguson 1-0 to Cowdenbeath with former Wasp Liam Buchanan scoring the winner.

Speaking after the match, Ferguson said: “Not the result we wanted. Some positive things to take out the game. First half performance was really good, just didn’t have that finishing touch.

“Obviously we make a mistake in the second half. I’ve spoken to big Neilly [Parry] about it, he’s disappointed as he should be but it happens. What I’m more disappointed in is the reaction we get from that. We kind of felt sorry for ourselves for about 15 or 20 minutes which we shouldn’t do.

“But listen, it’s something that we’re still early doors in terms of working with them, obviously we’re missing a few players as well. We just need to regroup, we’ll go again on Thursday and we’ll work, I’ll go back and watch the game and look over it and see what we can do better and hopefully we can use that for Saturday’s game.”

Asked if the starting 11, which included five of the summer signings, was an indication of his preferred line-up moving forward, Ferguson said: “No, big Mark Durnan’s missing, there’s a couple of boys out injured, obviously Alan Trouten is out injured, Ben Armour’s not trained for the last week, he’s had a problem.

“There’s been a couple of niggles as well and obviously I’m still looking to bring in a couple as well. We’re still early doors so hopefully over the next few days or so we’ll see boys getting back fit and one or two coming in.”

Ferguson remained tight-lipped on who he’s currently looking at but says there are a couple of areas that need strengthening, adding he hopes to get deals done “in the next couple of days.”

It’s now been more than a month since Ferguson was announced as Peter Grant’s replacement and with three games under his belt, he’s been impressed with his squad but insists there’s plenty of room for improvement.

“It’s new surroundings,” he said. “They’re getting used to working with me and the kind of demands I put on them, the training’s been a bit different to what they’ve been used to so we’ve worked them really hard. That’s only our third game as well, normally in a pre-season you’d have six or seven games before a season kicks off but this is the way the Premier Sports Cup works so we’ll need to use that as preparation for the start of the league.

“One thing I’ve got to be honest about: the boys’ attitude has been really good but there’s a lot of things we need to improve on and a lot we need to work on at the training ground.”

Despite the result, the sight of Alloa fans lining the stands was a joy to see and Ferguson was delighted to see them finally return.

He continued: “Listen, football’s nothing without fans, I don’t care if it’s only a couple of hundred, it’s better than nothing. The players have missed them, I’ve missed them, I think everyone’s missed them.

“Alloa supporters will be buzzing to get back and watch their team but rest assured the next couple of weeks the team will be ready for the first game against Peterhead.”