Ballinamallard United manager, Mark Stafford, has admitted that his team must improve defensively if they are to climb up the NIFL Championship table. 

The Mallards dropped out of the top six with a 3-1 home defeat to Armagh City, with all three of the visitor’s goals coming from set pieces, and Stafford acknowledged that it has been a weakness all season long.

“We are very poor at defending our box from set pieces,” he conceded.

“Everyone can see the amount of goals we have been conceding, and it’s very disappointing. We play nice football, we try to get the ball down, play it wide, try and cause problems, but when the ball is on a set piece we don’t look like a team that is capable of defending it at the minute.

"If you see the reel of goals we have conceded this season, it is really, really basic stuff that we are not getting right.

"In one way that is a good thing because you can say it’s not difficult to fix, but the flip side of that is that teams are still doing it to us and we are still conceding too many.

"I think we are lacking something at the minute. You don’t mind if a team turns up and scores a good goal and passes you to pieces, but against Armagh we were the artists of our own downfall.”

Ironically, the missing ingredient within the current squad is exactly what Stafford brought to the Ballinamallard defence in his playing days.

“You need to be brave and want to go and win the ball in the situation of the deal ball,” he said.

“You need to be big and strong. If you aren’t, then with the quality of the balls coming into our box like against Armagh, you can see we didn’t want to go and attack it enough and they did. That is what has undone us.”

The Mallards were hit by an untimely injury to Aaron Harkin prior to the game, with the defensive midfielder now ruled out of action for up to a month.

He joined fellow midfielder Gary Armstrong as well as Callum Moorehead and Alex Holder on the sidelines, with James McGrath and Ryan Morris stepping into their shoes in defensive midfield roles, but Stafford acknowledged the personnel change was not the reason for the defeat.

“The defeat wasn’t about the injuries,” he said.

“I thought James McGrath and Ryan Morris did very well in central midfield in open play, but again in the set pieces you could maybe say they could have done a bit better.

“We started the game very, very well. We were in control for the first 20 or 25 minutes, moving the ball around, getting into wide areas and asking them a few questions. I thought it was only a matter of time before something dropped for us.

"Then they get a long throw and it somehow bounces in our box and it's in the net, and you are one down going in at half time having played quite well.

"In the second-half we started quite well again, on the front foot. We looked the team in the ascendancy and then we concede. The keeper kicks the ball up the pitch and we concede a free kick from the punt. They score a header from the free kick. The third one is another free kick that bounces in the box and ends up in the net. It’s very disappointing.”

The defeat means Ballinamallard still have not managed back to back wins this season.

“We had a good opportunity at home to get three points, but we just can’t get a run going,” admitted the manager.

“If we had got a result then that would have been three wins in four, which would be a good return in the championship, but it is now two wins out of four, and the manner of the goals we conceded was the most disappointing thing. We just have to pick ourselves up and go again.”