Ashcroft put play offs in past
Thursday, 17th May 2018“If we had avoided some of the defeats or draws that we got and picked up wins, then we would have been right up there challenging St Mirren ....
Lee Ashcroft is happy to have agreed a new contract at the club. He told the website that it was all agreed fairly quickly after the play off games:-
“I can go and enjoy the break now knowing that it is sorted. Obviously you do not know what is happening at the end of seasons, you hear rumours and don’t know what is going to happen.
“I am delighted to get it signed. I don’t know if the gaffer knew what was happening with him either. A lot of boys were waiting about to see what was happening but it was always in my mind.
“I have loved my first two years here even though we finished the season on a bit of a downer after getting into the play offs. But that is football and I was delighted to get signed back up and look forward to getting going again next year.”
Lee Ashcroft | Signing | 17/05/2018
Thu, 17th May 2018
Was the gaffer, who knows Lee from his Kilmarnock days important to the decision to stay?
“I have played under him now for a lot of years now. He knows what I am like, I know what he is like as well. When you get to know somebody over the years it is a lot better. It was good to see him getting signed back up and the other couple of boys here today.”
Lee went home from the Player of the Year Awards held at the end of April with an armful of awards and he played down his own success last season:-
“I would take a win over a good performance any day of the week but if you can play and keep your performances up yourself, especially in a centre half position then you always have a chance of winning.
“I try and be as consistent as I can, that is a big thing for a defender. I will keep doing my best and it was great to pick up the awards, especially being voted for by the boys. That is just an added bonus but just unfortunate that it finished the way it did.
“We had a good run at the start of the season and at the end of season. Hopefully we can keep that up all the way through the season and be right up there challenging, especially if we can keep the majority of the boys who were here last year.
“Sometimes you are not going to have the best of weeks but we have to try and bounce back from that straight away rather than going on a run where you are not picking up as many points as we did.
“That kind of killed us. If we had avoided some of the defeats or draws that we got and picked up wins, then we would have been right up there challenging St Mirren and made it harder for them.
“With ten games to go they had a comfortable points lead over the chasing teams. If there had been someone else up there challenging then it would have made it harder for them.”
Lee was red carded just ten minutes into the second half of the first play off match against Dundee United. He did not want to dwell on the referee’s decision that was subsequently overturned and ponder over what might have happened had they remained eleven v eleven.
“It is not a nice thing. I was at Hamden the other week and it was rescinded. At the time I tried to speak to Bobby Madden calmly but he had already made his decision.
“There are not a lot of refs who go back on their decision, there was no much else I could have done. I just tried to calmly explain that there was no pull back. I said at the time ‘when you see the video again, you will see that I have not’.
“You can not ask, what if?’ It is not a nice thought to think what might have happened - we could have ended up worse and got beat in that first leg. That would have made the second leg harder as well but the boys dug in and we did get a good result. It was just unfortunate the way the second leg went.
“That is in the past now, we have to enjoy the break now, come back for pre season and be ready to go again. We have to try and put that behind us.”
After Livingston triumphing over Dundee United, the Pars will have the hurdle of the Tannadice men yet again next season. At least in the most recent encounter it looked as though, with a bit of better luck, Dunfermline could win over the Tangerines. The 24 year old central defender felt that after the second leg United know that they were lucky.
“Next time we play we will go out confident that we can out play them, it is just getting that first result against them. I think they will find it a lot harder against us and we will pick up more points against them than we have recently.
“It is an incentive after the disappointment we felt after that game. If we can keep most of the boys that we had last season, we have a good squad here, we can build on it and go again.
“We need to push to be above the play offs next year and go for automatic promotion, that is on everybody’s mind.”
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