He didn’t feel they reached the level of their previous displays under him but Robbie Neilson has praised his players for the efficient way they took care of business at Dunfermline on Saturday.
A goal in each half was enough to earn the Tangerines a comfortable three points at East End Park and they could even afford a late penalty miss when Paul McMullan’s kick hit a post and went behind.
And if it took his team a while to get going, Robbie had no complaints about their approach.
“We probably didn’t play as well as we have in the previous two games but we were pretty professional,” he said.
“We did the things we needed to do in the game and came away with three points.”
While Dunfermline were very much second best, he pointed out that had a lot to do with his team’s approach.
“You still have to do the right things, you have to defend properly. When they go 2-0 down they go gung-ho, bring on a couple of strikers and end up with four up front and start going long.
“Our defenders and midfielders had to deal with that, which they did really well.
“I thought we had a bit of variety, more so in the second half when we turned them.
“I felt a wee bit in the first half we tried to play a lot of football and, you know, they sat in and made it difficult for us to break them down and, at times, you have to have a bit of variety to try and turn people.
“We did that in the second half and that was the reason we went on to win it.”
The late penalty miss saw an on-field debate over who should take it and Robbie revealed that followed his instructions.
“Fraser Fyvie spoke to me before the game and asked if I wanted to pick somebody and I said to him you’re the captain, you decide what you want to do.
“I would rather have that. I would rather whoever feels good, wants to do it, to just go and take the penalty.
“The big thing for me is three or four months ago I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have had many people who wanted to take the penalty but now three or four guys were desperate to take it.
“People miss penalties. At least Paul had the bottle to go and take it.”
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