I believe in these players

18/12/11: JM - "Unless we learn from our mistakes we will get detached at the bottom of the league and it will be a long long season."

With just a couple of weeks to go until the transfer window opens, Manager Jim McIntyre has an opportunity to strengthen the squad if there are funds available. Jim said:-

"The board are working hard to try and make funds available and I would like to strengthen the squad, there is no doubt about that. But I also believe in this group of players and I think they are underperforming.  We're far better than what we're showing and if we can do the basics better, we'll do better.  In this league when you're playing the likes of Hearts, if you get a chance you need to take it."

Despite the result on Saturday, the Manager believes there are positives to take from the match:-

"I thought on the offensive we were decent and we looked threatening and I always thought we were going to score. But we just didn't have the final touch on the ball."

The Pars had the first real chance of the game after just forty seconds when Liam Buchanan force Hearts keeper Marian Kello to make a save. Barrowman should have headed in after three minutes, Paul Willis blasted over the bar a few minutes later and David Graham beat two defenders to force another great save after twenty one minutes.

It was a welcome change to see Dunfermline get off to a flying start from the start of the first half rather than the second half. Jim added:-

"You always want to come out of the traps quickly and we did that and apart from the opening goal I was happy with the way we played in the opening stages."

Despite the positives, Jim is well aware of what needs to change:-

"The bottom line is we've got a lot of experienced players in the squad and they know themselves when they've got it wrong.

"We sit and do a lot of video analysis and we sit and watch where we went wrong, then we educate the players and then we get on to the training ground and work hard to fix it.  But the bottom line is that no matter what system we play, each player is assigned a mark and told "that's your man, you do your job. It's up to you not to lose him; it's up to you to make sure he doesn't get away from you."

"Unless we learn from our mistakes we will get detached at the bottom of the league and it will be a long long season."