Keeper can handle Premier League ambition

Sean Murdoch signs a one year extension to his contract.

Goalkeeper Sean Murdoch has sights on getting the Pars to the Premier League within the timespan of his contract which now extends to May 2019. He told this website:-

"That is my aim and I am sure it is that of the manager and the coaching staff. In those two years I would like to help the club to get back to where they belong - in the Premier League."

Happy to stay Sean hopes to help the defence maintain the record that they set in the second half of last season.

"I thought in defence we did really well. Callum Morris has come in and shown how good a player he is, Jason Talbot, Lewis Martin, Ryan Williamson - they are all good players. Me, Callum and Lee Ashworth we all have a good understanding, long may that continue.

"We can build a base to give us a good platform because we know we have boys in the team who can score some goals."

The 30 year old keeper who re-joined Dunfermline Athletic on 17th July 2015 has his eye on playing as long as he can. People would say that for a keeper he is the right age and in his prime.

"I am still relatively young and you want to play in the best leagues and want to do as best as you can for the short space of your career. I have two years remaining at Dunfermline and my aim is to get to the Premier League as I stated. After that we will see where we are at."

Instancing Sean`s achievements in 2016-2017 when he picked up just about every Player of the Year Award that there was going manager Allan Johnston said:-

"That is incredible for a goalkeeper especially when he missed the first part of the season as well. He is a massive player for us and I am absolutely delighted that he wanted to extend his contract.

"You can see how agile he is by the saves he makes, even in training he is outstanding so to get somebody of that quality willing to commit for another year, I think everyone at the club is delighted.

"He is a big part of our plans, a big player for us and hopefully he will go on and have another successful season again. Some of his performances last year were outstanding and he just has to keep building on that."

"For a goalkeeper he is still really young, he has a lot of games under his belt and now he just has to keep progressing."

Despite the personal objective of keeping out goals Sean stressed that football is a team game:-

"Even the guys up top do well defensively to keep clean sheets. If we can keep a clean sheet for 50% to 60% of the games in the league, that would be a really good record. We shall see."

That 50% record was achieved over the final ten league matches of last season but for Sean that was never enough, he continued:-

"We did not keep as many clean sheets as I would have liked last season but towards the second half we were back into clean sheets and that is so important. We all have our own jobs to do and as long as everyone does their own jobs then I am sure that there will be more to come."

Allan Johnston confirmed that nineteen year old Cammy Gill will be number two to Sean.

"He did really well in the 20s and we just have to try and organise friendlies to get him games. We can see he can keep developing but he is going in the right direction. We want him to push Sean as much as he can."

Reflecting on the shape of the Championship for season 2017-2018 Sean saw the absence of Hibs and even bogey team, Ayr United as a clear chance to do better.

"It will still be hard and very competitive. To get promoted we have to try and get into the top two. Inverness have come down but I feel that Hibs are a better team than them, just a personal opinion but they will be tough and a hard place to go to. They have retained a lot of players and will bring players in so that they can go for promotion and bounce back up.

"You want to win that automatic promotion spot and the play offs are so so tough. To get out of the division it took a good club like Hibs three years albeit Rangers and Hearts were in it as well. We have only been there one season and finished a respectable fifth so anything below that would be a disappointment, anything above that would be a bonus."

Related Stories

• Talbot signs on
• McManus joins the Lap of Honour
• Aaron Splaine Signs
• Manager on Thursday
• Sean`s perfect end to season 2016-2017