Manager on Monday
Monday, 28th Dec 202028/12/20: SC - “Inverness’s game at the weekend against Morton was off, so they will be on the back of having lost a game down at Alloa.
What a difference the win on Saturday and the two recent comebacks against Raith Rovers and Dundee makes to the mentality of the team claimed Stevie Crawford:-
“That has been the pleasing thing for me. If you look at the Raith Rovers game, look at the Dundee game, look at Arbroath - we could have come away with no points in all three of these games. For some reason we haven’t, so again that comes down to character traits in people. Not just the players but my coaching staff, the chairman. It was something that I was fiercely proud of when I was a player at Dunfermline.
“Probably in my first spell here when we were playing in the Premier League, we had a lot of characters like that. It is focusing on what we are good at, trying to get better at what we are not doing so well and not get carried away.”
Speaking ahead of Tuesday night’s match against Inverness Caley Thistle, the manager warned:-
“We know that it is going to be a difficult game, they always are against Inverness. Robbo sets up in the main in a 4-3-2-1 formation, not to say that he is guaranteed to do that.
“Inverness’s game at the weekend against Morton was off, so they will be on the back of having lost a game down at Alloa. The previous game before that was 2-2 against Dundee and I watched their Friday night game against Queen of the South on the television.
“They have very good players who can cause us problems. Again we have to make sure that we do not lose too much focus on what we are good at as well. We have been working on stuff to cause them problems and as I say it will be a very tough, competitive fixture.”
Stevie sees the 13 year gap since a league win at Inverness as just an additional challenge:-
“The record is there to be broken. If somebody had said at the start of the season, knowing what we are facing that we would be sitting on 18 points after the first third of games, I think that would have been a good place.
“I feel that we are making baby steps, there is a togetherness and I know the supporters are not here at the moment but you get a feeling through social media or whatever that they are behind us. We are just desperate for these guys to be allowed back into stadiums.
“We are facing different propositions every week. No one team is the very same and it is something that we can get better at. Can we go ahead earlier in games? Can we go ahead in the first half?
“The never say die attitude of the boys, the commitment and the application that they are showing at the moment is there to build on.” SC quickly added his usual caution:-
“You look at the results in the last couple of weeks in the Championship, there is nothing between teams. If you become complacent very quickly you can fall off.”
Despite the team’s league position or maybe because of it, Stevie reckons that opponents are now coming out and having a proper go at Dunfermline:-
“Dundee were very front foot at the start of the game, against Arbroath I felt that we had chances in the first half and on another day we could come in at half time having scored two or three.
“Can we just be a little more aggressive in our attacking play? It is credit to other teams the way that they are setting up against us at the moment.”
An update on injuries?
“Fraser Murray (pictured above) tweaked his hamstring in the St Johnstone game and Miller Fenton went over on his ankle in training last week. I know Miller is just a young boy who has not had any game time yet but he is a terrific talent.
“Fraser Murray was very keen to get involved at the weekend against Arbroath. With a hamstring injury and given the amount of games that we have got coming up, it was too risky to ask him to pull on a strip for us. Whether he is available for the Inverness game, we are edging on the side of caution with that but I know that Fraser is fully committed to try and play a part at Inverness.”
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