Manager on Thursday

14/09/17: "St Mirren will come and have a go which will suit us as well.

Allan Johnston is keen to register a victory over St Mirren on Saturday and retake the leaders position at the top of the Ladbrokes Championship table.

"It is a great game to go into, they are obviously playing with a lot of confidence as we are. We still managed to score two goals away from home. We are scoring a lot of goals just now.

"They will bring a big support and so it will be a good atmosphere but that suits us."

The Dunfermline manager acknowledged the quality of players in the St Mirren team and said that he felt that Lewis Morgan is probably the best player in the league.

"I imagine that there will be a lot of big clubs looking at him. We have to make sure that he doesn`t cause us problems because he is the player who makes them tick."

The match will see Gavin Reilly return to East End Park for the first time since completing his season long loan from Hearts in 2016-2017.

"I brought Gavin here in the first place because he is a good player and he has a lot of pace. I`m sure that after last year not being as successful as he had hoped that he will be trying to make an impression."

So far this season the Pars have registered good home wins over Inverness Caley Thistle and Falkirk. The manager said that you have to make sure that your home form is good in this league:-

"There is not much between all the teams anyway. We have said that numerous times. I`m sure that they will not look forward to playing against guys like Joe Cardle with the form that he is in.

"St Mirren will come and have a go which will suit us as well. Hopefully that will leave us space to go and attack with our good players and create chances and score goals.

"But we are going to have to defend better than we did in the second half against Morton last Saturday. It is unusual because the majority of the season we have defended really well. We just have to make sure that we get back to basics.

"At 2-0 you should go on and win the game quite comfortably. Although we lost the goal right after half time we should still have responded better than what we did."

That first Morton goal came after a poor back pass from skipper Callum Morris. His manager commented that Callum had probably been one of the best players this season and such a mistake was not like him:-

"He has got everything to play at a higher level. He has got pace, he is a top player, he is the captain, he is a good talker and good organiser. It happens sometimes, even the best players in the world make mistakes. It is how you react and respond and that is the same for the whole team.

"The three goals were preventable. You don`t see very often a free kick getting moved up ten yards right to the edge of your box and they scored from that. I cannot remember that happening in my career. That is a first from me but it was a great finish (from Gary Harkins).

"The third goal was a bad mistake as well. We just have to make sure that we cut out mistakes. You can`t afford to make mistakes against good teams.

"We have to make sure that if you lose a goal that you are strong enough to handle that as well. We are a young team and still learning."

Jason Talbot has recovered from the injury that forced him out of the Morton match after just half an hour and he trained on Thursday. Michael Paton is likely to be out for a few weeks after hurting his knee in training this week.

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