Ryan Dow contract extension

The Pars 29 year old vice captain was pleased to sign an extension to his contract earlier today.

Dunfermline Athletic were delighted to agree a one year contract extension that commits Ryan Dow to Dunfermline until the summer of 2022. He expressed his delight claiming that his time at Dunfermline has probably been one of the happiest times in my career.

“I’m delighted. Since I signed here I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s about having a manager that believes in you and allows you to go out there and play your own game. I’ve been really happy and it was easy decision when the club came and offered the extension. It didn’t take a lot of time to think about, I’m happy here and it was an easy decision.

“My contract was up in the summer. To be fair, it didn’t really cross my mind but the gaffer spoke to me the other week about it. It was probably one of the easiest negotiations. It was just a ‘yes’ from me and I was happy to sign up. It’s a big club and what they’re doing here looking forward, I want to be a part of that as well.”

With a number of players contracts up at the end of this season, Ryan’s is the first contract to be addressed, he added:-

“It was a similar time last year to extend it and even last year I was happy to do it because I enjoyed my football last season. It’s a bit different this season with no fans but I’ve still really enjoyed my time.

“The last couple of weeks maybe haven’t been the best, we’ve had a couple of poor results from our point of view, but as a team, going forward, we look a much better side this season and I want to be a part of that going into next year.”

Ryan admitted that some might look for more security than just a one year extension but Ryan stressed that was not a major consideration:-

“The club have come with that contract and I’m happy enough to sign it. I’ve not really looked into anything. I’m just happy to be here and I want to be here. It’s another year at a club I want to be at.”

The club’s ambitions are something that Ryan wants to help team achieve and be part of.

“Obviously, there still a long way to go in the season but we know what we’re aiming for. We’re not hiding it, we want this club to be in the Premiership, however long that takes.

“There’s been a takeover and there’s a lot of plans in place for the club. The size of the club, we want to be pushing for play-offs this season and we’ve given ourselves a great opportunity with the start we’ve made.

“There’s still a long way to go. When we play Arbroath on Saturday, that’s just the first round of fixtures and there’s still another two rounds to go. But if we can keep up the way we’ve started in the next two rounds we’ll be doing something good. There’s a long way to go but I think we’re on the right tracks.”

Dunfermline will be sitting second at Christmas and after eight matches that is probably as good as could be expected:-

“You could swing it both ways. It is still the first round of fixtures but if you had said last year that we would be second at Christmas you would bite people’s hands off for that.

“It’s going to be a tough period in the next week, because there’s going to be a lot of games, considering we’ve just come off a tough week as well, with the cup, etc. There’s a lot of games but if you can pick up a lot of points it makes a huge difference going into the latter stages of the season.”

Certainly the blip over the last couple of weeks has created some cause for concern but Ryan felt that it was not a cup hangover on Saturday at Dundee:-

“I don’t know, I don’t want to make any excuses. For me, personally, I wouldn’t use that as an excuse. I just think we were off it as a team. You could see that with the first goal, we gave them a bit too much space and with a player like Charlie Adam he’s going to get one right eventually.

“It was an unbelievable strike. If it’s another player in the league you would be saying to them, ‘hit it’ because it’s that far out. It was a great strike and then we tried to regroup in the second-half and got off to the worst start and conceded two goals. It’s 3-0 and because you’ve played that extra-time people will be thinking there’s no way of recovering.

“So, to come back and do what we did was a huge credit to the boys. But I think, as a group, we know that, although we showed great character, it wasn’t good enough. We said that to each other after the game. It was a point gained from where we were with 15 minutes to go, but we can’t start games like that.

“We had to come back from 2-0 down against Raith Rovers as well and against Clyde, although I think that was a bit different because we did play some decent stuff and just found ourselves 2-0 down. We need to start giving ourselves a better chance in games, like we did at the start of the season, and be a bit more solid - and good going forward because we are giving ourselves a lot to do at the moment.”

Many would say a point is a good point to leave Dundee with but few would suggest that it is earned in such a way as on Saturday:-

“I don’t think the fans would pick being 3-0 down with 15 minutes to go, and I don’t think we would either. We had a similar game to that last year and we never managed to get a point. We went down to 10 men and were 4-1 down, and got it back to 4-3. I still think if there had been another five minutes in that game we would have got the point.

“It was kind of in your head when it went to 3-1 that it was a carbon copy of last season and this time we managed to get the point. If you said to most fans or players that Dundee, with the players and budget they’ve got, if they would take a point up there, I think most people would but maybe not in the fashion it happened.

“Hopefully we’ll not be in that position again but, because we’ve done it a few times now, opposition teams will know we’ve done it before. Hopefully we won’t be making it a habit though. Hopefully it will be other way around and we can be 3-0 up and shut up shop.

“They’re sloppy goals to concede and we need to work on that. We knew that after the game. We got a decent point in the end but we knew they were really sloppy goals and they were against Morton as well.

“We need to get back to the basics of what we were good at at the start of the season and be a good, strong unit. I think we were, we weren’t conceding a lot of goals and we were a real threat going forward, so we need to get back to that and cut out the sloppy goals.”

⚽️ Fixture amendment

📆 Tuesday December 29

🏆 Scottish Championship

🏟 @ICTFC v @officialdafc

⌚️ Kick-off 6.30pm

▪️Brought forward from 7.45pm at the request of the clubs

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