East Fife boss pleased to see defence tighten up

Apart from a madcap second half at Montrose when they shipped four goals, opposition teams have been finding it tougher to break down Young’s men.

At the weekend, a Queen’s Park side who had gone into the meeting as League One leaders and one of the top scorers in the division needed until the dying embers of the game to breach the Fife back-line.

But even then, East Fife dusted themselves down and secured a point thanks to an injury-time equaliser.

The Fifers have conceded the most goals in the league so far this campaign, but Young believes his back-line are showing signs that they’ve shaken off their early-season jitters.

“We’ve started to tighten up quite a bit defensively and I think that comes from them playing together more,” said the manager.

“They’re getting used to each other and the formation.

“It’s been a 3-5-2 and sometimes chopping and changing within that.

“Everybody has been buying into it and that’s what we’ve been working on in training during the week.

“From our point of view, we’re getting there slowly but surely both defending and attacking-wise.

“Yeah, we lost a poor goal at the weekend. Kyle Connell has slipped when he’s went with their guy.

"But our goal then is very, very similar.

"Overall, we managed to limit them to very little and mainly shots from distance.”

East Fife remain at the bottom of League One but Saturday’s draw took them to within a point of Clyde and three of Peterhead.

They’ve taken seven points from four games and Young wants to build on that this weekend when Airdrie, who beat East Fife 3-0 in September, come calling.

Young added: “We want to get more points on the board, but it’s just a game at a time for us.

"The last time we played Airdrie we went down to 10 men, which was frustrating, and Saturday is our chance to get one over on them and make up for what happened away from home.

"The confidence is there.

"When we scored the goal on Saturday, you could see the reaction – every single player was across celebrating."