East Fife aiming for maximum festive points

Two wins from the next two games, away to Stenhousemuir and at home to Forfar, will give East Fife the tally Young reckons they need to stay on course for a play-off place.

But there has been frustration over the past couple of weekends, with a home defeat to Montrose followed up by the side losing a three goal lead at Bayview on Saturday to Stranraer.

Young conceded that individual mistakes again came back to haunt his side on Saturday.

He said: “At 3-1, 3-2 and even when they get it back to 3-3 we had chances to score a fourth goal.

“But at no matter what level of football you shouldn’t lose a 3-0 lead; the game should be over.

“It’s not something you see a lot - apart from the Albion Rovers game when we came back - but it wasn’t nice being on the other side of it.”

The Blues pulled their first goal back when Ross Dunlop hauled down Luke Donnelly.

It gave them a real lift and the left they needed to kick on and complete the turnaround.

“It’s down to mistakes,” said Young.

“Ross Dunlop makes a mistake for their first goal which then gives them an incentive.

“The second, to be fair, comes from a good cross but the third is a mistake from Daryll Meggatt and that’s your two centre halves making these mistakes. It’s cost us.”

After last weekend’s 2-0 defeat to Montrose Young made a couple of changes, introducing Scott McBride and Kyle Bell into the starting XI.

Both did well and may keep their places this weekend.

Despite the disappointment of only taking one point from a possible two homes games over the past fortnight, Bayview boss Young is pretty content about where the club is positioned.

Pacesetters Arbroath look like they’ll take a world of catching in first, but second place Raith remain in striking distance.

And that’s a scenario the Methil chief would have been comfortable with if offered it at the start of the new campaign.

Young said: “If someone had said at the start of the season you’d be third going into Christmas then I’m sure pretty much every team in the league, apart from those with the bigger budgets, would have taken it.

“Our target for each quarter is to get at least 13 points so if we win our next two games then we’ve done that.

“But at the same time we’re still ruing the opportunities we’ve missed over the past couple of weeks.”

The most recent missed opportunity came at the weekend when a three goal advantage was let slip.

Young made changes pre-match, bringing in Kyle Bell and Scott McBride for rare starts.

Both showed up well on the pitch at the weekend, but behind the scenes former Raith Rovers youth player Bell has been impressing enough to earn an extension to his existing deal at the club.

“Kyle Bell and Scott McBride did well so Saturday was great from that point of view,” said Young.

“We’ve got Kyle signed up for another year and a half now as well.

“He had to come off at the weekend because he was cramping up so it was a precaution.

“But he’s coming on well.”

Daryll Meggatt will miss Saturday’s game due to suspension.