Manager on Thursday

24/08/12: JJ - Ryan Thomson and Paul Willis not considered for Saturday

Jim Jefferies has stated that neither Ryan Thomson nor Paul Willis we be considered for selection against Airdrie United on Saturday. He told his Thursday press conference that following certain off the field events, procedures have to be carried out in a legal way:-

"You call both players in; the Club have to be thorough in their investigation. They have to listen to what the players say. The players will get a copy of everything they said and discussed and then that will go with their advisers to another meeting which will be held within a prescribed number of days. They need to agree that everything is right within the transcript and once we discuss it further we then take it to a disciplinary if we feel that is the case. That would mean that they would be called to another meeting to determine whether or not they will be further punished.

"Pictures can look bad; we are not denying that but sometimes they can be very false. I am only talking in terms of the Facebook stuff, there is no defence for the other things that happened. We need to find out their side of things first; the reasons for it and why and who said what and what caused it. We will get all that in writing before the Club will make a comment regarding any disciplinary action that will be taken which will probably be sometime next week.

"In the meantime both these players will not be considered for selection because I do not think it is fair on them or the Club to have all this hanging over them. It is a distraction from what we are trying to do - to try and get a result on Saturday. That is a sensible thing to do, the players agree with that.  It is not something that we wanted to happen; we are not the first club and we will not be the last with such a problem.

"We want to ensure our supporters that we do not take this lightly, we will investigate it thoroughly, it is only fair to listen to what the players have got to say since it is their legal right. We'll go through the procedure and they will hear next week if any punishment is coming their way through a statement. It cannot be any clearer."

The Manager has to be thankful that both Ryan Wallace and Jordan McMillan returned to training on Thursday and assuming that there is no adverse reaction they will train again on Friday and be available for Saturday. After illness caused Josh Falkingham to be subbed in the Partick Thistle game, he was told to stay away from training on Monday to make sure he fully recovered.

The Pars lost out on Forfar Athletic's new artificial surface last month and the match at Airdrie will be another on artificial pitch. Ahead of the trip to Station Park Jim had the team train on astro so he has decided against that this week given the result in the opening game!

"We have been on astro most of the pre season because of the rain so it is not a problem. Airdrie are a team who have been elevated into a higher league because of what has happened over the summer. They are top of the league and you cannot ask any more of them. They have had a good result over Dumbarton and then gone to Livingston where it is never easy. They have acquitted themselves well, and their confidence will be up.

"The surface is different but that is no excuse, Dunfermline has done that it the past. It is not about that, it is about making sure that we go and get the result. To do that we will have to match their will and enthusiasm, which I am sure that we will. It is about creating chances and hopefully taking them.

"We are looking forward to the game. We are not too down about last week, we learned a lot and we know that we are good enough because we can play better than we did last week. There wasn't a lot in the game; they had one chance in the first half and took it. The only real chances they got in the second half were due to us pushing forward and clearly hitting us on the break.

"There is a lot to take from that 1-0 defeat and it is about how you bounce back - you always say that in defeat. We go there as favourites even though they have had two victories, because of the fact it is Dunfermline. We want to bounce back, we weren't clinical last week but if we are as clinical as we were at Cowdenbeath then the chances we make we will take this time."

The Manager had no news of any additions to his squad but said that he had made enquiries about St Johnstone's Stevie May at the start of the season. "He is somebody we were interested at one time."

Ian Murray is still training with Dunfermline but Jim Jefferies said that he was not currently in a position to offer him anything.