Allan McManus took charge of the side today and while disappointed with the 4-3 loss against Dunfermline, he was pleased with the players’ efforts over the ninety minutes. He said:
“I’m absolutely devastated for the players. I think they’ve put everything and more into the game. They’ve done everything that I’ve asked them and I think they played some fantastic stuff today. They had numerous opportunities in the game and just where we are in the league just now we seem to be getting punished for every single little mistake.
“But there is no point in feeling down about it, we’ve got to rally and I’ve said to the boys if they play like that and they work as hard as that then it is going to turn for them very quickly.”
Some of the goals lost by Saints today were a mixture of mistakes and bad fortune but Allan reckons Saints can turn things around quickly. He said:
“You can’t legislate for it. When you are at the top end of the table you get the breaks and on another day they go bye the post, but what can you do? As I say, no point in feeling sorry for ourselves, the boys have got to believe by working as hard as they did today and with the style of football that they played today then they’ve got to believe that we will all get out of this position very quickly.
“The confidence comes from within. It is all down to hard work and obviously we have just tried to vary the style of play a wee bit today and I think it worked for us in a lot of occasions but sometimes when individual or small mistakes happen we are getting punished at the moment. But we’ll get back into the training ground on Monday and we keep working as hard as we possibly can to rectify it next week again.”
John Sutton was on scoring form today with two goals in the first half. Allan said:
“I’m delighted for him. I thought he worked his backside off, as did everybody to be fair. On another day he could have had a couple more. The amount of balls we got in to the box, on another day we might have got on the end of them as well.
“The players have given us everything and more that I asked for today, we’ve created numerous chances and ultimately a freak goal and a mistake has been the difference in the game. On another day we could have won the game.”
Lewis Morgan was a bit under the weather in the lead up to today’s game but the youngster put in another good outing. Allan said:
“Morgy has had a great season so far, he has been doing really well. A lot of consistency for a younger player so it is important that he keeps doing that. He’s not been feeling too great the last few days so that was how we had to bring him off a bit earlier as he was running on empty. But to be fair I thought when Walshy went on he had a good impact on the game as well.”