Our performance against Crusaders will give us strength to avoid the drop, says Newry City boss Barry Gray after narrow home defeat

The basement club remained two points behind Ballymena United in a bid to avoid automatic relegation into the Championship.

Newry would miss a first-half penalty at The Showgrounds as Ciaran O'Connor's spot-kick was saved by Johnny Tuffey.

That miss would be further compounded as Crusaders left with all three points as Ben Kennedy headed in from a precise Jay Boyd cross.

The result means Stephen Baxter's side maintain their pursuit of fourth-placed Glentoran, whilst City remain bottom of the Premiership standings.

"I felt we deserved something from the game, so we are frustrated," said Gray.

"It's a 1-0 defeat but we've created good opportunities, missed a penalty and had one cleared off the line.

"We had another shout for a penalty plus another really opportunity after that.

"We restricted Crusaders to very little and I thought the team did really well.

"We set-up a game plan for really difficult opposition and they carried that out really well.

"If you compare that to where we were last week leaving Windsor Park, we were hugely frustrated and disappointed.

"However, this week after that performance it gives you strength that we can go into the split games and be prepared for what's coming."

Gray changed his side’s shape to a back five in a bid to be more solid and with a view whether or not to implement it for the final five fixtures of the campaign.

He explained: "The shape changed which allowed some detail we wanted to look at to see whether it's worth or while using it for the split games.

"We've got five games in the split, and as I said when I first took over, if it was in our hands going into the split we would be very happy.

"The gap is tiny, we know it's a one game swing and today's performance is pleasing.

"We think we're in a situation now that we can play our way for the next five games in a positive fashion.

"When the gap gets tighter and you have performances like we've had today where you feel you could've taken something, it doesn't change the facts or anything like that as it just builds frustration as to where we are at this moment in time.

"The two point gap can stay there right until the last game of the season. It doesn't really bother me as long as we can shift it in the next five weeks.

"We know we need three points better off than Ballymena in the next five games and that's where it is.

"There's no point looking at game five as we will just look at game one and see if we can lift our performance levels like we did today and bring that into the next game."

City were without the likes of Fra McCaffrey, Ryan McGivern and Steven Ball for the visit of Crusaders but Gray is hopeful to have a full squad at his disposal for the challenges ahead.

"We have a couple of weeks without a game now,” he explained.

"We hope to have potentially all of them back for the next game but we just don't know.”