ARTHURLIE manager Stevie Kerrigan admitted he was left 'embarrassed' by the Barrhead club's defending in the 4-3 defeat to Largs Thistle on Saturday.

Lie travelled to Barrfields Stadium as heavy favourites on the back of a 3-0 win over Troon the previous week. Contrarily newly promoted Largs had lost every one of their eight league games.

But the home side registered their first points of the campaign and Lie's performance left Kerrigan dumbfounded.

He said: "It was terrible. Defensively it was maybe as bad as I've seen any team at our level, some of the defending was beyond belief.

"It was a little bit embarrassing some of the goals we let in. Especially against a team who I think will probably be relegated very early in the season.

"It was surprise for me, I was very confident going into the game. I'm scratching my head as to how we can perform the way we did, I'm angry at the way we dropped our performance from the win against Troon."

Meanwhile Kerrigan was delighted to land the signature of former Stenhousemuir, Albion Rovers and Cowdenbeath striker John Gemmell from Hurlford United after Darren Gribben left the club to join Broxburn Athletic.

The Dunterlie Park boss is convinced he has landed one of the top strikers in junior football and admitted he expected more from Gribben in his time at the club.

He said: "John was suspended for Saturday and we've got a clause with Hurlford that he won't play on Saturday. I'm delighted to get him in, I think he'll give us a performance every week.

"I think we've probably got one of the best strikers in junior football, everything about him suggests he will really add to the squad so I'm over the moon to get him."

"Darren didn't really hit the heights I thought he would hit at the club, he did ok but not more than that. I definitely expected more from him, but we managed to get good money in for him."

Kerrigan is still on the lookout for a forward player with pace after missing out on Jack Smith from Stenhousemuir and Morton player Caolan McAleer.

He added: "We still have the budget for probably one more and I'd like a forward player with pace.

"We missed out on two, we missed out on Jack Smith from Stenhousemuir and Caolan McAleer at Morton. I won't bring in players for the sake of it they have to be better than what we have."