Queens boss Marvin Bartley has warned his players they are fighting for their futures at the club.
The Palmerston boss was less than happy with his side’s performance as they went down 3-0 away at Kelty Hearts.
He said: “Disappointing is putting it lightly – it was embarrassing. The performance in the first half wasn’t acceptable and I reminded the players of the standards that we have set and have to adhere to. Maybe four or five of them got pass marks in the first half.
“The second half won’t be a team that plays under me. That isn’t acceptable, and I’ve let the players know that. With a lot of players being out of contract in the summer, they’re playing for their livelihoods.
“Playing against a part-time team, you are outplayed, outworked, outfought and don’t want to do the hard yards. No player or team will play underneath me or be a reflection of me doing things like that.”
He added: “It’s not about seeing things coming, if you don’t turn up, you will lose games. They’ve got good players who can get on the ball and play, we told them that.
“They’re part-time, we are full-time, this is our livelihood. They’ve got players who have jobs outside of this, this is our job. We don’t get outfought, we don’t get outworked, that just doesn’t happen.
“In no circumstances should we get outworked by part-time teams and that has happened under my watch. It won’t happen again. Whatever changes I need to make sure it doesn’t happen again, I will do.”
Going into the game on the back of two wins in the league and just missing out on a place in the SPFL Trust Trophy final, confidence was high.
But Bartley noted: “Sometimes in football you think you have arrived, you get a few good performances, a couple of wins and you get plaudits for getting knocked out of the cup against a team from above but coming back to your bread and butter, you can’t just think you have to turn up.
“When you think you just have to turn up, things like this happen and I warned the players of that, I spoke to them at half-time, and we got that in the second half.
“That is down to me, it is down to me to fix, I’m the manager of this football club and I will fix it”.
While, upset and annoyed, Bartley didn’t feel sorry for himself or the players but the supporters.
“I will be demanding a reaction straight away. You train the way you play, you don’t turn up on a Saturday and think ‘Oh this is brilliant, the fans are here, let’s hit a switch and see what we can do’. I will demand in training a reaction from the players.”
