BRIAN RICE admitted FC Edinburgh deserved to win on Saturday as he branded his team’s performance a "shambles".

Alloa took the lead through Conor Sammon before finding themselves 3-1 down. Ross MacIver was able to cut the deficit to one goal; however, 30 seconds later the visitors extended their league again and ran out 4-2 winners.

Rice said: “Defensively, it was a shambles. We scored two goals at home and haven't taken anything out the game.

“The goals we lost were schoolboy stuff. It’s all individual mistakes. You can’t afford to lose goals like that. The best teams in the world can’t lose four goals and take something out the game.

“For me, [it’s] the individual mistakes. We could have done a lot better at the four goals. We get ourselves back in the game with 10 minutes to go, 30 seconds later we lose a crazy goal. Never seen that coming. It’s a wake up a call.”

Asked if there’s any positives to take, Rice said: “Well, we scored two goals at home. Scored two very good goals. Got Cammy O’Donnell back on the pitch. Ross MacIver got his first goal of the season in the league. Sammo [Conor Sammon] got a good header.

“When you get beat you look at the negatives first, you look at where did you go wrong? Did I get the team wrong? Possibly, possibly I got the team wrong, possibly I got the tactics wrong so the first thing I’ll look at is myself.

“We scored after five minutes, everything started okay but then, I said to them: once a bit of slackness creeps into your play it spreads very, very quickly. That’s what happened.

“Listen, we don’t blame anybody, we all take the blame. I take the majority of the blame and I hold my hands up to that.

“[We] should have defended better. Quite simply we scored early, we should have defended better, we didn’t, Edinburgh deserved to win. Quite simple.”

Looking ahead to next weekend’s trip to Airdrieonians, Rice said: “We’ve got to make sure we’re ready. We started the game well, like I say we got the early goal.

“We were okay but then the two goals we lost before half-time are just ridiculous.

“I’m not going to stand here and say we should have done this or done that, we didn’t do it. Edinburgh deserved to win so well done Edinburgh.”

Rice also said the club need to bring in more players but admitted it’s not easy.

“Of course we need to make additions,” he said. “We’re looking to strengthen. But it’s difficult, it’s difficult going out and getting players to make you better.

“It’s very, very difficult to get boys in that’s better than what you’ve got. We keep looking, we’ve plenty time. I know where we need to strengthen and we’re looking.”

Daniel Church has started the last two games on the bench but came on at half-time and it was his delivery that lead to the second goal.

Rice said: “It was a great ball in. To be fair to him he’s been working on it in training and he put two or three good crosses in.

“It was a great cross for the second goal and we got ourself back in the game at that stage and I felt we might have got something out of it. But not defending 30 seconds later like we did.”