AYR United boss Scott Brown has urged his side to "dig deep and go again" after falling out of the Scottish Championship play-off places.
The Honest Men slipped into fifth position on Saturday following a 3-1 loss to leaders St Johnstone in Perth.
After knocking the same side out of the Challenge Cup only 11 days prior, Ayr's hopes of a repeat result were dealt an early blow as Reece McAlear struck the home side ahead after just 16 minutes.
Liam Dick did head Ayr level almost immediately but the hosts were able to regain the lead with Cheick Diabate prodding in a corner shortly before half-time.
With the visitors chasing an equaliser, St Johnstone sealed all three points with five minutes remaining as Ruari Paton poked home following a mix-up between United keeper Max Thompson and Stuart Bannigan.
“I’m disappointed in the manner we’ve lost the goals," Brown told Ayr United TV. "Two set plays they’ve come from and the last one is a shambles to be fair.
“But, I think, overall, in the game we’ve done really well. There were periods of time we controlled the game. We’ve just not worked the goalie enough, even the shots on target.
“They’ve not really played all the way through us, we gave away cheap free kicks and that was the problem in the first half.”
Brown said that his side's continued injury woes made it harder to compete with the league leaders.
He added: “You can see the state of the pitch, it’s a hard pitch to play on. I think we did play some good stuff, we just didn’t affect the final third enough.
“The strength and depth in their squad was hard to compete with. They’ve made a concussion sub, and we didn’t have enough subs to go around to make that.
“We’re a young team, on the bench, we’ve got a lot of lads out injured that we need back as quickly as we possibly can.
“We’ve not really had a fully fit squad all the way through the season. I think that’s the biggest issue at this moment in time.”
Brown wants his men to pick themselves up and look to battle back into the play-off places as they play their game in hand away to Arbroath on Tuesday, March 3.
Following that, they face the side currently in fourth place, Dunfermline Athletic, on Saturday, March 7.
Brown said: “We had to ask a lot from the lads, to dig deep and go again – especially after Tuesday and Saturday.
“They are probably going to have to do the same again on Tuesday night in Arbroath.
“We are down personnel hugely, it is what it is. We need to deal with that. We have to go up there and prove a point.
“We’ve dropped out that top four, for the first time in a long time, but we’ve got a game in hand. We win on Tuesday and it puts us back in a good place.”
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