Jimmy Thelin spoke to the media on Monday to preview our William Hill Premiership match against Dundee United.

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Seeking to improve results

“Our focus hasn’t changed. We’re trying to turn this around. Everybody’s working so hard and we have gone through the games with the players and we have adjusted some parts because we need to have a different balance in our team right now. We can be more stable in the transition phases. There has been a lot of work and really clear conversation with the players in a good way, a good spirit and it is up to us now to turn these things around and do better in some parts of the game.

“Sometimes when you are in bad runs, you can think that everything is bad, but it’s not. It’s not that in the performance everything is bad but the results have been really bad. Still it’s not enough, that is obvious. The way we have lost these games, I mentioned after the last game, about tactics, systems, the way you play, the philosophy, but sometimes it’s also the basic things, how you recover a block, how you sprint back, when you lose the ball, how you act in a 50/50 duel.

“That is the basics we talked about this week. We go through the goals we conceded over the last weeks and think about how can we help each other better and be more compact, to help the players to look better in the situation. If you get too exposed, we need more help when we defend, and in attacking is more how we can control the central areas much better than we’re doing right now.

“That has been our focus. I think it’s really, really clear for the players now, and we work hard on it, and there is still a positive energy. That’s the most important thing that we’re trying to do better and trying to improve ourselves. It’s not so many things but these things for us are really crucial now that we get them right in the right way.”

Dundee Utd & team news

“It’s important what we do in the performance tomorrow. If we do the performance well, I think we have the capacity if we act like a really good team, 11 players playing together, we have a big chance to get a good result tomorrow.

“We have another game on Saturday also. So of course, some of these games, if it’s tomorrow or the game on Saturday, some players are going to replace each other and get more energy to the team.”

Keep believing in each other

“Sometimes we have to be really open what’s happening. That’s my job to keep believing in each other, but also sometimes put some responsibility in some individual actions. How can we connect 11 players to think in the same way, in the same time, and take the same responsibility for the end result of the game. Sometimes it’s about how you recover into a block, how you’re acting to support your teammate in some areas, how you build in transition so the other players get space.

“All of these kind of things we have went through now and make it really simple for everyone. So don’t talk about 200 things, because you don’t want to adjust too much. That’s why it’s good to look through the games that play so far this season, ‘okay, this is stable, this what we have to keep doing, but this we have to change now.’ Otherwise we can’t fix the problem. So for us, the most clearest thing for us is how we control the centre of the pitch.”

Keeping calm

“We have invested in a lot of young players now that are going to grow and they’re going to learn. Sometimes when you get in this moment, you don’t get the result you have to learn quicker. We need to keep the calmness and do the things they need to do and football is a sport of results. Everybody knows that but still we have everybody on the same page. I have dialogue with the CEO Alan Burrows and the Chairman everyday. Nothing has changed in our dynamic, it’s still the same focus. How can we be better? What we need to do to improve, what we need to think about in the future? What can I adjust right now? That’s my job as a manager with my staff, to adjust some parts so we can get the results. We need to keep growing.

“We have been too exposed as a team, big distances between each other on the pitch, so we can’t help each other in this critical moment. Everybody has different systems and then can prioritise different areas of the pitch, but for us, it’s more how close you are to each other on the pitch when you’re playing in an attacking way or defending way. For me, everything is connected, and right now we have too much distance between our players, and then we can’t get our strengths out, or we can’t hide our weaknesses, so we have to help each other as a team to be much more compact.”