Louis needs to stop that losing feeling

“At this level if you concede the first goal it is hard and we are struggling to get back into the game.”

Louis Longridge says that the goals Dunfermline are losing, and the manner in which they are losing them, is just not good enough. He told the media after the 3-0 home defeat from Inverness Caley Thistle that as a whole, everybody needs to work a lot harder to halt the run of three league defeats:-

“You defend from the front first and foremost. When it is getting near our goal we are making individual errors that are ultimately costing us in games.

“Last week against Ayr was a bad day at the office for quite a number of the players which wasn’t good enough. Prior to that, the Ross County game, the Hearts game, I think we started really brightly. We were creating chances and we looked a threat.

“I thought we were the better team in the first half against Ross County but they scored their goal and with their experience they have seen the game out. Hearts did the same - an experienced team sitting top of the Premier League - they scored a goal against the run of play and managed to see out the game.”

As Louis sees it the team has been starting games quite well and against Inverness he had a similar feeling:-

“Myles hit the bar, Faiss has had a good opportunity to go through on goal. He maybe should have scored it, then Myles was through on goal and if we had taken the chances we could possibly have gone on and won the game.

“At this level if you concede the first goal it is hard and we are struggling to get back into the game.”

In the last two matches when things went wrong it appeared that the team reverted to something more like 4-4-2. Louis observed that they have performed well and done the right things with the formation they started off with.

“We have played 3-5-2 against the likes of Dundee, Dundee United and Hearts - good opposition - and we have handled things well.

“If you look back at those games and the work rate that we had, we weren’t making mistakes in those games which was obviously a big plus. That is why we got positive results.

“At the moment with the fact that we have had two heavy defeats from the 3-5-2, I am not sure if the manager is going to try 4-4-2 or different variations of the 4-1-3-2 or whatever it is. I am not sure what their thoughts are but obviously conceding seven goals in two games is not good enough. There definitely needs to be changes to try and get a positive reaction next week.”

After four Championship matches Dunfermline have three points, six off the top and three points behind Partick Thistle immediately above them. Louis agreed that they cannot let gaps develop given the competitive nature of the Championship.

“It was important that we went out to try and win all three points. Last week was a disappointing result. We were only four points off the top, it is still quite tight but we can’t keep make these silly mistakes and fall further back in the league.

“Next week is a cup game, we will be looking to win that and then the most important thing is to take all three points in the next league game.”

Louis claimed that he will treat the Irn Bru Cup tie against Boreham Wood next Saturday as ‘just another game’:-

“It is important now that we bounce back with a win, regardless if it is a cup game or a league game. We just need to bounce back with a good performance and see it right out to the 90 minutes.

“We need to take our chances at one end and prevent them at the other. Something we are finding quite hard to do at the moment. It is good in football that you can redeem yourself in the next performance.

“That is two negative results that we have had so we are hoping to put things right next week. It is away to Boreham Wood which is going to be another difficult game but I am confident that we can get something.”

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