Thomson ready for testing match
Friday, 15th Mar 2019“I am still young, I am still learning and obviously I am loving my football right now.”
Joe Thomson scored Dunfermline’s first league goal of this season, his 59th minute goal at Tannadice set the Pars on course for a 3-2 win over Dundee United. United are the visitors at East End Park on Saturday and he is hoping for another victory over them. He reflected on the recent spell of good form that has propelled the Pars up the Championship:-
“It has been a good few weeks, the whole team is defending a lot better and more as a unit. I think that has shown by not conceding in the last five games and when you have somebody like Bruce (Anderson) up front you know, as we saw at the weekend, you only need one chance to score.”
Joe acknowledged that Saturday’s match at home to Dundee United should be a harder match than those last five.
“It will be more of a test than what we have had but one that we are all confident about, as you would expect having won five games in a row. It is one that we will be definitely be trying to take all three points from.”
While on loan at Queen of the South Joe scored in both their wins over Dundee United in March and April last year. Then Dundee United were the opposition for his first Dunfermline league appearance, he passed off that success saying:-
“Sometimes you get that but it doesn’t really matter who scores as long as we win and get another three points. We are still not where we want to be yet, Inverness can still overtake us if they win their game in hand. We don’t want that, we want to be ahead of them having scored the same amount of games.”
Things have certainly closed up at the top of the Championship. The Pars sit fourth just three points behind Ayr United in third and trailing Dundee United by six points. Joe claimed that just a few weeks ago everybody would have laughed if you had suggested that they would be in that position.
“Obviously it is not only through the run that we’ve been on but maybe other teams haven’t won as many games as they would have wanted.
“It is brilliant for us and we are dragging ourselves back into it. We need to keep the momentum going while it is here.”
The team bond was visible for all to see at the end of the game on Saturday, Joe continued:-
“Since day one everybody has bought into Stevie’s ideas and the way he wants to play. We can understand it and I think in the last five games you have seen that. We are starting to get an identity to the way we want to play.
“Obviously we can only do what we can do. Come Saturday we will be playing our own game and hopefully winning all three points.”
Everyone would take a 1-0 win even if it’s not a pretty performance:-
“You might say boring, boring but I didn’t realise it at the time but I think it was seventeen passes before the goal. It is not just defending, you have players who are willing to do both sides of the game. Willing to win the ball back and obviously we have players who can pass it as well.
“We had more than enough chances to score more than one goal as well but listen the three points are all that mattered and that was brilliant.
“It helps when you have a striker who is scoring, I am sure that if he had been here since the start of the season he would have been well into double figures by now. His return since he came has been brilliant.
“The midfielders were scoring enough, defenders weren’t even. For Danny Devine to score and me to get a goal against Inverness it takes the weight off the striker’s shoulders.”
Joe’s contribution has not gone unnoticed, earning his place in last weekend’s SPFL team of the day. He covers a lot of ground in a box to box role:-
“That is what I like to do. I have played left midfield, sitting against Partick and off the front against Queens so I think it helps your development playing different positions. It means that you are in different situations. I am still young, I am still learning and obviously I am loving my football right now.”
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