Macca's Review of 2011 Part Two

Life in the SPL proves tough, mistakes are costly and injury situation creates difficulty

Of the championship winning squad Alex Burke, Neil McGregor, Chris Higgins, Calum Woods, Jake Hyde, Graham Bayne and Greg Paterson all left to make way for new signings Paul Gallacher, John Potter, Andy Barrowman, Paddy Boyle and Paul Burns as Dunfermline prepared for life in the SPL after an absence of four seasons.

The campaign started well despite concerns that it took a brilliant Paul Gallacher penalty save to hold on to a draw against St Mirren in the opening match. Eight points were taken from the first four games courtesy of wins at St Johnstone and Dundee United and a draw at home to Terry Butcher's Caley Thistle.

Jim McIntyre was delighted that his team had started the SPL campaign by hitting the ground running:-

"St Mirren arguably were the better team and they could have had us out of sight in the first half but they never. We grew into the game and picked up our first point. That is always key for any new team coming into the league. We followed that up with back to back wins away from home which was really good from really good performances. I was pleased with how we defended when we were put under pressure."

The season started to go wrong on 23rd August at Bayview with a poor performance against struggling East Fife. John Robertson's men won far too easily and from then until the end of the year just six more league points were taken from the 45 contested. Four from Hibs and one each from Inverness and Aberdeen.

"That defeat to East Fife did have a bad effect and I have got to hold my hand up and say that I learned a lesson that night with changing the team. I watched several managers do the same thing. I watched Aberdeen do it, Rangers at Falkirk, Hearts at Ayr United where you are bringing in players who should be more than capable of taking care of the game. We felt we had a strong squad and should have been able to win the game but the bottom line is that we were not up to scratch that night. East Fife thoroughly deserved their win. Did it mess with the momentum that the team had? Well maybe it did."

Dunfermline haven't won a home game all season and their last win was on 5th November at Easter Road. As a consequence the First Division leaders in January are now bottom of the SPL as a new year comes in but Macca is confident that there are more than a few teams in the SPL that they can beat and pick up the all important points from:-

"There are some that we should have beaten as well. We should have beaten Inverness twice, we should have beaten both Aberdeen and Hibs at home. These are games where we created the chances to win the game but never took them.

"There is no doubt in my mind that we are well equipped to get results. As much as I don't want to make excuses because a lot of the goals have been preventable, the injuries have played a huge part. Key players - four or five or six players - out every single week. On some occasions we have had up to ten out and I defy anybody to have that amount of players out and be able to field their strongest side."

As much as that is a factor the Pars gaffer recognised that the Pars have given away a lot of points in the 19 SPL matches played so far.

"We have given away six at home with three draws. In two of those games we should have been out of sight by half time and in the Hibs game we have done well to come back. We should have been 4-1 up against Aberdeen and in the Inverness game the chances we created were fabulous yet we had to score a wonder goal to get a draw out of it.

"That is the disappointing side, but the positives for me is that we are definitely capable of creating against teams but we have to make sure that we get that all important first goal."

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