Paul Optimistic For Season Ahead

Paul McLean has been in outstanding form at the heart of the City defence in the three matches so far this season and City's longest-serving player is quietly optimistic about the team's prospects for the season ahead.

Speaking immediately after the team's battling draw at East End Park on Saturday, Paul said,

" We're really pleased with our performance here today and we can also take a lot of encouragement after the way we played against Cowdenbeath and Dumbarton."

" The manager set up the team today to be really solid, and to hit them on the counter-attack where we have have a lot of pace going forward with Ryan Ferguson, Andy Jackson and Robert Thomson and the plan worked really well."

" Big Rab had a couple of great chances and was really unlucky not to take them but it's also good that we've come to a place like this and kept a clean-sheet."

" Dunfermline are the bookies favourites for the title and being a full-time club clearly makes a lot of difference so it was good to perform so well here but there's absolutely no reason why we can't produce performances like that throughout the season, and if we do we must have a real good chance of reaching the play-offs."

" We played really well in our last two matches although we were really unfortunate not to get the result against Dumbarton but we've got the nucleus of a really good squad this year. It was perhaps not quite right last year but the boys who've come in have done brilliantly, everyone is working hard and there's good competition for places which keeps everyone on their toes."

" Dunfermline are obviously clear favourites to win the title and being a full-time club you would expect that but although it's still very early days as far as the league is concerned, we have every reason to feel cautiously optimistic if we can continue to play as we have been doing."