Ferguson ‘embarrassed’ after 8-0 weekend defeat

However, the Ballymena United boss has had to stomach two particularly bitter pills in recent weeks that he never came close to during his playing days.

“I think the most I was ever beaten as a player was five, and that was in Europe, but I had never been beaten six up until a couple of weeks ago,” mused Ferguson after watching his side absolutely taken to the cleaners in Saturday’s 8-0 defeat by Cliftonville.

“I would like to apologise to the fans and everyone associated with the club.

“It was obviously not good enough by the standards we want to set and the players know that.

“We thought we had told them in no uncertain terms after the Linfield game what was expected of them.

“You can’t go from that to beating Crusaders to then turning in that sort of performance – that’s not good enough.

“We’ve told them what needs to be done – we took their views on it and there weren’t too many positives in that so it needs to be put right.

“I’m not going to start blaming the depth of the squad or injuries or suspensions – there were 11 players out there who were told to go out and work hard, try and match them and get in their faces and they didn’t do it.

“The only two players who came out with any credit were Gary Thompson and, more so in the second half, Tony Kane, when he was put into midfield.

“They worked their pans in and gave it as much as they had but it obviously wasn’t enough.

“The players should feel embarrassed – that might seem a harsh word but it’s reality.

“When you play against a team who are top of the league, you can’t stand off them and let them play round you because they have good quality players, work hard, hunt in packs and at the top end of the pitch they have players who can score goals.

“The formation was the exact same as the one which beat Crusaders last week so we can’t use that as an excuse.

“Obviously your team does get weakened when you lose some of your quality players but irrespective of that, we had 11 players out there and our 11 didn’t work as hard as their 11.

“This league is not like the English Premiership – if you match teams for work-rate, commitment and desire and want to win the ball and second balls, you have a chance – we didn’t do that.

“It was more a case of damage limitation after half-time. We tried to do a man-to-man job on the two centre-forwards but that instruction wasn’t carried out. We tried to shore up the midfield by putting four in there and Tony Kane worked hard but it was in other areas of the pitch that we lost the game.

“When you get runners running off, it becomes impossible for the two boys in midfield who are working their socks off to try and cover too many holes.

“People have held their hands up and said it’s my fault but we’re trying to eradicate that – we don’t want people just thinking it’s easy to hold their hands up and say it’s my fault.

“It will be a test for us to know what kind of characters we have in there,” added Ferguson.