ALLAN JOHNSTON has backed Faissal El Bakhtaoui to rediscover his scoring boots and believes he’s “getting back to the player we remember”.

The 25-year-old, who rejoined Athletic on a season-long loan from Dundee in the summer two years after leaving, is yet to find the net in the league.

Both of the French-Moroccan forward’s goals this season came at Brechin City in the Betfred Cup but, as he prepares his side for the visit of Partick Thistle tomorrow (Friday) night, the Pars boss has seen signs of encouragement.

“I think Faiss is getting back to the player we remember,” he told Press Sport this week.

“He’s not played a lot of football and he missed pre-season as well, so he’s still getting up to speed. You can see that he’s getting closer and closer every week, and I think he just needs to get that goal and he’ll be flying.

“It’s difficult when you miss pre-season and you’re straight into the games but are not quite ready to play, but he’s got undoubted quality and is a top player.

“Some of his touches at the weekend, and some of his passing, was really good and he’s been unlucky in a couple of the games as well. You look at the Hearts game, for example, and there was a couple of saves from the goalie and whatever, so he’s getting closer.

“I’m sure once he gets that goal he’ll go on a run.”

Finding more of a cutting edge is what Johnston will look to El Bakhtaoui and his team-mates to provide against the Jags that was missing in Saturday’s draw at Morton.

Dunfermline controlled the majority of the match but their failure to build on Andy Ryan’s opening goal came back to haunt them when Lee Robinson spilled Scott Tiffoney’s effort into the net.

“I thought it was really one-sided, so it was frustrating, but I’m sure that will give the boys a lot of confidence,” Johnston continued.

“We totally dominated the game but we should’ve scored more goals; that’s probably the only criticism. We should, quite clearly, have won the game, and it’s an individual error that’s killed us a bit.

“He (Robinson) was gutted obviously; he’s more frustrated than anyone with the goal we lost at the weekend, but we’ve just got to continue those kind of performances because, if you play like that, you win more games than you lose.

“There’s still a long way to go but we need to get in the habit of winning games.”