Taking the stick
Monday, 9th Sep 2019Pars captain Paul Paton stresses performances on the park need to be better.
With Alloa Athletic’s 2-1 win, Dunfermline were knocked out of their second cup competition in three weeks but while they were praised for their Celtic Park performance where the treble treble winners took until the sixth last minute of extra time to secure a 2-1 win, the feeling after exiting the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer Cup was somewhat different.
Skipper Paul Paton expressed the feeling of the dressing room where obviously a better result had been the hope:-
“We took the plaudits after Celtic and St Mirren so it is important we take a bit of stick after the last two weeks. We have been a mile off it, we have let ourselves down and to be quite honest let the fans and the management staff down as well.
“We have just not been good enough as a team. We are a full time team and have been beaten by two part time teams two weeks in a row.
“It is important to realise that isn’t good enough, come in on Monday, work as hard as ever and try and put it right next week.”
The defeat was harder to take given that the Pars had gone ahead with the much sought after first goal scored by Greg Kiltie in 29th minute.
“It was a good goal, that is what we have done earlier in the season. A good counterattacking move but we gave a poor goal away and then they have obviously hit us with the sucker punch with the second.”
Alloa’s equaliser came five minutes before half time with what turned out to be the winner eight minutes into the second. Paul continued:-
“They maybe deserved it, we were too far off the play today so fair play to Alloa and I have to say fair play to them.”
The skipper agreed that his side had more possession in the second half but felt that it took until Alloa went down to ten men when with all their substitutions made, Blair Malcolm had to go off, for Dunfermline to have the impetus. He said:-
“We should be taking the game to them at home, we are the full time team. We say that we are an SPL sized club, we pride ourselves on that and if you are saying these things you have to show it on a Saturday and we have not been doing that.”
No more Caramel Wafers for Sammy
The Pars were one of six Championship sides to exit the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer Cup at the Third Round stage but following a disappointing performance Paul, who joined Dunfermline from Falkirk in June, feels that the remedy will only come from hard work and the players producing the goods on the park.
“We work really hard. The manager works us hard right from day one in pre season. I know that we will work hard on Monday but once you cross these lines you have to be better as a team.
“I saw Kris Boyd and James McFadden talking about it on Friday night. You can talk all the tactics and formations that you like but once you cross that line it is down to the players. The efforts on the pitch the last two weeks have not been good enough.”
The experienced 32 year old stressed that if you keep giving goals away you are not going to win games no matter how good you are going forward but agreed:-
“We are probably not creating enough for the strikers. That is what we will need to work on as a full starting eleven. That is not just the midfield, the defenders or the attacking boys, it is something that we should be doing as a team.
“The manager works hard from Monday to Friday on the style of play, patterns of play so when we cross that line it has got to be better from us. We are the ones that are on the pitch.”
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