ALLAN JOHNSTON has praised his team for “doing a wee bit more” and says their confidence has been boosted by recent performances.

The Pars boss was disappointed that his side conceded late on to lose at Dundee United on Tuesday after a valiant rearguard effort for more than 45 minutes after Nat Wedderburn’s first-half dismissal for a foul on Tony Andreu.

That followed only their second league clean sheet of the campaign in Saturday’s derby stalemate with Raith Rovers but, as he prepares for the second instalment of a Tangerine double-header in the Irn-Bru Cup this weekend, Johnston had nothing but praise for his players.

He told Press Sport: “You’re coming to Dundee United and are playing against a team who have a really good home record and are joint top of the league but I thought we were just as good – if not better – for long periods. We restricted them to very few opportunities; we looked a lot more solid defensively.

“The boys will get a lot of confidence from that because we were really hard to break down. I thought the wide players worked incredibly hard to get back into their shape, the two in the middle of the park gave us a platform by winning their tackles and starting attacks, and obviously Farid up front causes all sorts of problems.

“The boys will take a lot of confidence from that because it was such a good performance even with 10 men. You can’t really look at the negatives after that.”

When asked about what he thought was behind his team’s recent defensive improvement, he continued: “Andy Geggan’s come in and done really well at right back with his experience but I think it’s the whole team; everyone is doing a wee bit more, working a wee bit harder and working as a team to get the ball back. That’s how you get results.

“I feel we’ve deserved more from the last three games. If you look at the Dumbarton game, we were by far the better team and were playing in their half for the majority, yet only got a draw, then only got a draw last week as well. We know we’re not far away but we need to start winning games.”

Nat Wedderburn is set to miss out while Gavin Reilly is set to see a specialist . David Hopkirk is said to be another week or two away from a return, Ben Richards-Everton is still out, while Ryan Williamson is a doubt after being forced off the bench on Tuesday after pulling up in the warm-up.