The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Pars head to Tannadice to avenge loss
Dunfermline head to Tannadice tomorrow looking to avenge their painful 2-0 defeat from Dundee United earlier in the season.
The Pars were well beaten as Lawrence Shankland scored a double within half an hour, but manager Stevie Crawford believes his team will be desperate for a different outcome this time round after “hurting” back in August.
He said: “Lawrence Shankland will be brimming with confidence after being away with the Scotland squad.”
Crawford said: “He’ll have got a lift from being involved in that environment.
“But do we make this game about Lawrence Shankland or do we focus on what we’ve been bringing to the table in the last four games?
“We were hurting after the Dundee United performance. I felt it from the boys on the Monday. We never did ourselves justice.
“We can’t guarantee that we’re going to go up there and win the game, but we have to make sure we’re competing and going head to head with them better than we did at East End Park in the first game. “That’s all we can ask.” Meanwhile, Crawford has praised Lee Ashcroft for bringing a feelgood factor to Dunfermline after the defender’s stunning goal was likened to a strike by Zinedine Zidane.
Ashcroft made amends for his earlier own goal against Ayr United on Saturday with a 20-yard volley to draw the Pars level before Andy Ryan’s late winner in the 3-2 victory.
Footage of the strike has gone viral on the internet, with ESPN in Argentina comparing it to French legend Zidane’s iconic volley in Real Madrid’s Champions League final success against Bayer Leverkusen at Hampden in 2002.
Crawford said: “Big Ashy is not going to score a goal like that again!
“It was mentioned to me that the goal had gone viral and somebody mentioned it to me, tongue in cheek, about its likeness to Zidane’s goal at Hampden.
“The dressing room is not somewhere I go to now, you sometimes have to distance yourself, but I imagine he will be coming in for a little bit of stick.
“Sometimes, defenders like to join in as well with finishing at the end of a session and he scored a few goals last week.
“It was a goal worthy of winning a game of football. I know that it wasn’t the actual winner but it was the goal that was worthy of winning a game.
“It brings a feel-good factor, the feeling that I want for people going away from East End.”