Be the best you can or you’ll regret it
Yogi tells Pars they have to carry out the bare necessities
JOHN HUGHES insists he wants Dunfermline to sweat the small stuff as they bid to escape the clutches of a dreaded relegation play-off.
The Pars host alreadydoomed Queen of the South tonight sitting in secondbottom spot and with their Championship future still firmly on the line.
If Ayr United win at home to Partick Thistle it does not matter what the Fifers do at East End Park.
But if the Honest Men slip up then a victory for Dunfermline will be enough for them to avoid a shoot-out with League One’s hopefuls to retain their second-tier status.
The Pars were tipped last summer to fight it out for promotion to the Premiership but have instead had to face the harsh realities of a desperate battle for Championship survival.
The East End Park men have been out of the relegation zone for only five weeks this season and for 15 weeks they have been rock bottom.
But, unbeaten at home this year and with just five defeats from their last 15 matches, Hughes has urged his players to cope with the magnitude of what lies ahead of them tonight.
Yogi – who took over in midNovember after the sacking of Peter Grant – said: “It’s been a season that no one expected, it’s been a season that no one wanted, but it is what it is.
“For us to give ourselves that wee fighting chance, then all credit to them, so we need to stay positive.
“We need to keep trusting each other, keep believing in each other and keep helping each other along.
“I want my players to embrace the pressure. I don’t want to walk from it, I don’t want them to stick their head in the sand, you need to embrace it.
“When I came in here, they were certainly lacking confidence.
“When you’re lacking confidence, you’re not winning games, you’ve not got momentum. We had to get a belief in them, bring it together again, and I’ve had a fantastic response out of them.
“Now we’re in these pressure games, where we don’t want to be, at the bottom end of the table and we need to handle it.
“I’ve been there, and I can tell you, through my experience, there’s times you’ve been in that situation and you think that it’s all about you.
“You don’t really conduct yourself in a great, professional manner because you feel that you’ve been hard done by.
“It’s only years later, when you sit back and look at it, you feel embarrassed because you should have been a better team-mate, you should have had a better focus, a better mental mindset, a better attitude, a better lifestyle. If you’re not, you’re only cheating yourself, or you’re cheating your club and your team-mates. That’s what we’ve put to them.
“Everything that you’ve got, you need to be the best that you can be.
“Every small detail and percentage – anything you feel that you need to do – then do it. Because if you don’t, and it doesn’t go our way then you’ll regret it.” Meanwhile, despite being consigned to League One next season, interim player-boss Wullie Gibson has vowed there will be no slacking off from Queens as he seeks the job permanently. He said: “Although our fate was sealed last weekend, we still have something to play for. We are all playing for our futures and we owe it to the fans to keep going to the very end. “We need to dust ourselves down and go for the win so that we at least end the season on a positive note.”