The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Determined Pars vow to battle all way to the end
Pars striker David Hopkirk reckons Saturday’s hard-fought win shows the League One champions are not going to ease up during the closing weeks of the campaign.
A week after clinching the title, the East End Park men were pushed all the way and had to show all their grit and determination before Faissal El Bakhtaoui’s late goal secured the victory that extended their fine unbeaten run to 10 games.
Hopkirk said: “We’ve won the league but we just want to keep going until the end of the season.
“The gaffer has made that clear so we are going into every game to try to win it and keep some momentum going into next season.
“It’s always hard to come here and the park is not the best either. We just dug in looking for the win and Fais helped us do that today.”
The in-form and highly sought-after El Bakhtaoui secured the Pars’ fourth win on the trot when some nice build up play allowed substitute Joe Cardle room to pick out the striker in the box and he duly headed the ball home from close range to capture his 30th goal of the season and send the large contingent of visiting supporters into raptures.
Cardle also came close as he hit the woodwork, as did team mate Ryan Wallace, while a good save from David Hutton denied a first half Spas Georgiev effort at the other end.
Hopkirk and goal-scorer El Bakhtaoui are among an entire squad of players who are out of contract in the summer but Hopkirk insists many players will want to continue their career with the champions.
He added: “I don’t know what’s happening with myself personally, but I think everyone wants to do well and stay here. It’s a great bunch of boys and obviously it’s a great club as well so we’ll see what happens.”
Pars gaffer Allan Johnston was satisfied with the result, but insisted his side could have done better. He said: “It wasn’t a classy game by any means.
“First half we dominated but to be fair they came into it a bit in the second half. It’s a hard place to come especially with the pitch, but you could see the wee bit of quality we had made the difference.
“Overall we deserved the win but we can play a lot better than that.”
Johnston now has his focus set on tying up contracts for some of his players.
He added: “It’s unusual to see a club with the whole team out of contract. I’m going to have my work cut out. It’s going to be a really hard job.”