Crawford: Let’s focus on ourselves

Stevie Crawford has urged Dunfermline to concentrate on themselves as they seek to kickstart their season against fellow strugglers Partick Thistle.

The Pars are bottom of the Championship after a disappointing opening to the season and travel to Firhill still in search of their first league victory following last weekend’s 1-0 defeat to Inverness.

The match has taken on added significance following Thistle’s decision to sack manager Gary Caldwell.

However, Crawford – who is confident he has the backing of his own chairman, Ross McArthur – is eager for the Fifers not to be distracted by their hosts’ current predicament.

He said: “It is a massive game. Both ourselves and Partick find ourselves where we don’t want to be.

“It’s about making sure that we go and focus our attention on this game.

“We can’t change anything that has happened now, it is what it is.

“We very much have to go to Partick and take heart from the performance on Saturday, albeit it wasn’t the result that we were looking for.

“It is about not getting too downbeat but I understand we want to try to get this first league win and get that off our backs.

“I will take that pressure. As a coaching staff, I don’t want to throw that in on top of the players.

“I would be more concerned if I was sitting talking this week knowing that we didn’t deserve to take anything from the game last week.

“Partick is a hard place to go but certainly a place we can go and get a result to get our season up and running.”