Gretna caretaker boss Mick Wadsworth admitted the club face an urgent battle for survival following their 3-0 SPL defeat by Dundee United.Just 501 spectators - a record SPL low - turned up at Fir Park to watch the bottom club ship goals to Garry Kenneth, Morgaro Gomis and David Robertson.

But Wadsworth confessed it was difficult for his players to focus on football when the future of the club is in doubt.

Although the players have been paid following a delay last month, no money is forthcoming from ill owner Brooks Mileson, who was discharged from hospital last month after being hit with a brain infection.

Wadsworth could give no guarantees that Gretna would stay afloat until the end of the season.

He said: "There's a lot of difficulty at the moment. We have got some very important meetings tomorrow.

"The finances and the survival of the club is on everyone's minds and that takes precedence. We are on a sticky wicket, put it that way.

"People have worked really hard to keep the thing going. All we have done in the past few weeks is patch it up, but we are in a bit of a corner now."

Wadsworth could give no guarantees that the club could complete the season let alone look beyond that.

"I'm worried about the immediate future," he added. "Brooks is very ill, we have no direct contact with Brooks. "Everything is through Craig, his son, and it has been a tough call for Craig. We have got no financial assitance from that corner because Brooks is ill.

"If his illness is going to be long term then he has every right not to be worrying about a football club next season. "What we do hope is that we can cobble it together to get through this season so there is a graceful withdrawal if necessary. "But our major hope is that he gets better and picks up the reins again, because without him we are in a very difficult situation.

"A lot depends on tomorrow's meetings, which will involve financial people, directors of the club and probably people from the parent company."

The attendance was less than half the previous low between Gretna and Inverness and came after the match was postponed twice in six days.

But Wadsworth said: "I think the SPL have let us down. To turn a game round in less than 48 hours when our public have got to travel the best part of a 200-mile round trip, I thought it was unfair. We wanted to play in a fortnight's time.

"I bet there were a lot of people who didn't know this game was on tonight, Rangers and Everton were on telly, Bolton were probably on another channel."

United boss Craig Levein - who made five changes - was delighted his side had got back to winning ways and closed the gap on third-placed Motherwell to one point.

"It was a massive game for us because we have drawn the last four games, although we should have won every one of them," he said.

"It was beginning to get nerve-wracking for me. So it was good to put on a good performance.

"I was pleased with everyone who came in."

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