The Managers Pre Match Conference

“The last three performances have been encouraging enough. I thought we played ok against St Mirren here although we did not win the game. We played a good first half here against Dundee and I thought we played consistently well throughout the game on Saturday. We had five really good scoring chances and we hit the post. And on top of that we had the controversial penalty incident. The lads cannot be faulted for what they did at the weekend.

“We have three home games before the split and we ask the home fans to be as supportive as the away supporters in these matches and that should help us get into the top half.

“We need a bit of luck in front of goal but it is more than that. It comes down to ability as well. We have the capability to score. Niall McGinn has shown he has that, Rory Fallon showed on Saturday he has the ability to do that, Scott Vernon has showed it and Declan McManus has shown in the youth side in recent years he can score. So I am not too concerned about the prospects of scoring and defensively at the moment we have been very solid. The goal we lost on Saturday had more to do with the low sun getting in the players eyes.

“We have five games to go before the split. One of them is against Celtic. You sometimes get points in unexpected places and I am not saying we won’t get any points against Celtic but if you exclude that game we only have four games left. Tomorrow night is very important because we are at home playing against a rival team.

“Team news is that Joe Shaughnessy got a broken nose so we will have to see whether or not the Doctor permits him to play. He is not a pretty sight and thankfully he is not getting his wedding photo taken tomorrow but there is not a tougher guy about the place than him so he might make it. Everyone else is ok.”

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