Not even the most optimistic gaffer in the country would have been able to find any on Saturday if he’d been in Steven Noble’s shoes.

All Gala could muster in a deeply disappointing display was two shots on target during the entire 90 minutes.

The hesitant defending, misplaced passes through midfield and lack of fluency anywhere on the park made for a miserable afternoon.

Manager Noble didn’t even attempt to find a positive. He told us: “That’s the worst we’ve played this season. We are at home and should have done a lot better – it was flat from the start to the finish.” Noble had been rocked with the absence of his three recognised strikers – brother Stuart through injury, the suspended Jamie Gibson, and Ashley Langford, who was a late call off.

He was also without regular full-backs Darran Thomson, Andrew Common and Lee Stephen, as well as midfield players Calum Jardine and Craig Pinnons.

But there was still enough quality at his disposal to warrant a much better performance.

Noble added: “The starting eleven we had today was good enough to get us a win, so I am disappointed.

“We had David Bonnar and Sean Paliczka coming back after lengthy injuries, and I hoped their team-mates would help them through the game – it turned out that Sean and David were helping their team-mates.

“We’re in a rut just now and we need to get out of it. It takes hard work and a lot of belief, but we have the players who can do it.” The brightest spell of the game for Gala came inside the opening couple of minutes as solitary striker Paliczka burst into the channel to collect a pass only for his jersey to be tugged.

It was lively and it was direct but, apart from a tame Dean McColm shot from 25 yards, that was it for the first half.

Paul Hossack, Billy Miller and Craig McBride all had opportunities to clear their lines in the build-up play to Gretna’s opener. None of them did and former Dalbeattie striker Scott Milligan managed to cut inside and his squared pass from close-range bobbled up and deflected into the net off John Dodds.

Daryl Devlin, Bonnar and Ross Aitchison enjoyed some nice enough possession football but play broke down far too easily as the ball entered the Gretna half.

Dodds saved well from a Milligan header before further defensive errors led to a second goal on the half hour. Hossack won his tackle on the edge of the area but the loose ball was easily collected by Connor Graham to slot home a shot from 20 yards.

Only a good recovery from McBride prevented Iain Anderson making it three on 36 minutes.

Games can often change with the intervention of a half-time team talk.

This one did – but only in the sense that Gretna improved further.

A period of one-touch possession football saw Anderson force Dodds into a tremendous save at full stretch, and Brandon Longcake clip the post with a header.

The third goal arrived on 55 minutes with David Raynard firing into the bottom corner from 20 yards.

The fourth, 13 minutes later, rubbed further salt into the wounds as Longcake jinked into space to roll the ball home.

A late rally from the home side saw Keith Lough dink the ball a foot wide and Paliczka also miss the target after being teed up by McColm in front of goal. An injury time save from James Greenall also denied Paliczka a late consolation.

Gala FR: J Dodds, G Robinson, B Miller, P Hossack, C McBride, D Bonnar, R Aitchison, D Devlin, S Paliczka, K Lough (R Noble 84) & D McColm.