BARRY FERGUSON was involved in a heated discussion with the Alloa fans following Saturday’s draw at Dumbarton and says the 'negative comments' have been noticed by his players.

Immediately after the referee blew the whistle for full-time following Saturday's 1-1 draw, the Wasps manager ran across the pitch to confront the travelling support.

Ferguson explained in his post-match interview how he – and his players – have become aware of negative remarks coming from the Alloa faithful.

He said: “I’m just sick of negative comments, that’s plain and simple. Stick up for my boys. First half we were excellent; second half we were poor. But the negativity, it’s not for a lack of trying. We were poor in the second half, I’ll admit that but my boys still worked hard for me.

“There’s a small section because the vast majority support the team, and I understand that they want to win every game, but when it becomes personal I don’t like it so that’s plain and simple, I’ve had enough of it.”

Asked if it’s something he’s noticed over recent weeks, Ferguson continued: “Not just me, my players [too]. Now, the big turnover in players, they’ve got to realise it doesn’t happen overnight. Where we are in the league, we’re still within touching distance of the top. Constructive criticism, I can take it all day.”

Reflecting on the match, Ferguson said he felt it was two points dropped. “First half we were good,” he said. “We were trying to hit them on the counter. They’ve had some right good results, he’s got a good team here, [a] physical team. We knew it was going to be tough, we came to get three points. There’s obviously still injuries, bringing players like Scougs [Stefan Scougall] and Hendo [Euan Henderson] coming off with a hamstring [injury], they’ve not trained all week.

“Look, you’ll probably look at it down the line as a decent point away from home but we try and win every game we play.”

On Steven Boyd’s first half goal, Ferguson added: “It was a good finish, the reason I went with him was for his pace in behind. It kind of worked in bits in the first half but the second half – I said to them at half-time we had to continue because I knew they had to stand up to Dumbarton because they’re a strong, physical team.

“I thought we done that first half, we won a lot of first balls and if we didn’t win that we got the second ball which I was really happy with but it’s just trying to get a level of consistency off them.”