Dunfermline’s showing in their 3-0 defeat to Partick Thistle surprised James McPake.
The Pars boss was reluctant to make excuses after his side were thoroughly beaten at Firhill in the Scottish Championship.
Goals from Scott Robinson, Brian Graham and Kerr McInroy gave Thistle all three points.
Dunfermline had calls for first-half penalties turned down and were without Ben Summers who dropped out with a thigh injury.
He is the latest in a sizeable list of injuries but will hopefully return next weekend.
James McPake: Thistle by far the better team
“It’s disappointing, to say the least,” said McPake. “Partick were by far the better team on the day, all over the pitch.
“You sometimes get away with one or two having off days, but unfortunately for us today, we were just nowhere near the levels that we accept.
“I don’t want to make excuses, I just don’t think we defended well enough as a team.
“We’ve been excellent at it, but today it was a game of basketball at times. They had 23 shots, we had 19.
“That’s very unlike us. It’s just a disappointing afternoon.”
McPake thought his side could have had a first-half penalty but was reluctant to attribute it to the outcome of the game.
He also pointed to Thistle being denied one of their own late in the game.
Dunfermline ‘buoyant’ in lead-up to game
“We weren’t anywhere near the level that this Dunfermline team have shown over the period since we came in the door,” added McPake.
“The performance surprised me. We said to them before the game, training-wise it’s as good as we’ve seen them this week in training.
“They’re off the back of a fantastic performance, so they were buoyant, they were lively in training.
“It took us by surprise because we’ve not seen that in any of the games.
“If there is a positive, that’s got to be the positive. It’s not something that I can go in and label to they players, that they let us down. They’ve never done it in any of the games.
“But today, it wasn’t through lack of trying, the effort was there.
“We’ll look at ourselves as well, could we have changed the shape during the game?
“We’re limited at the moment, and that’s by no means an excuse. The same team, minus Ben Summers, was excellent for the last two games.
Summers trained on Friday but has a thigh injury and wasn’t risked. He will hopefully be available for next weekend.
“He’s too valuable to us to risk playing him and lose him for a long period of time,” said the Dunfermline boss.
