EWAN OTOO has insisted Dunfermline's squad are retaining belief ahead of tomorrow's clash with Arbroath and that they are focused on producing a better level of performance.

The 21-year-old has also said that they can't use injuries as an excuse for their recent run of results, but has backed new arrival Chris Kane to provide experience and know-how to help them climb the table.

Six points and one place separate the Pars and tomorrow's visitors, who sit bottom of the Championship, after Saturday's 3-0 home defeat by Queen's Park.

That result, a second successive home defeat, extended Dunfermline's winless run to eight matches, but Otoo said that optimism remains in place on the training ground.

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"I think, as a group we're all positive. We all know what we need to do, we all know that the way to go is to be positive and to be upbeat, that's when you get the best out of us as a group," he said.

"Collectively, we are all in the right mindset. We're just focusing on doing all we can to put the best performance we can, then that will yield the result and, hopefully, we can kick on from there.

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"But it's just about getting that win on the board then go from there.

"It's hard to say what's gone wrong in general. At times, maybe as players we can be a little bit, I wouldn't say naive, but sometimes we maybe lack a little bit of togetherness, and we could do with having a bit more belief at times.

"I think we need to believe in ourselves a little bit more. If we do believe in ourselves a bit more, then that confidence will come, we'll be able to perform to the best of our ability and then go from there.

"Sometimes it just comes down to knowing how good we are. Hopefully, we can show that on Saturday - show how good we are and pick up the three points."

Plenty has been made of Dunfermline's injury problems this season, with key men such as captain, Kyle Benedictus, defenders Rhys Breen and Sam Fisher, Matty Todd and Kane Ritchie-Hosler still out, but Otoo said the players are not using it as an excuse.

He does, however, believe the addition of Kane, 29, on loan from St Johnstone will help, continuing: "We all believe we are good enough to do better than we have been doing in recent weeks.

"It's going to be good for us, especially adding that experience. The know-how, a leader and a player we can look to on the pitch when perhaps it might not be going so well.

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"He's been in that situation time and time again, so hopefully he can help us to come out of our situation.

"The type of league it is - obviously it's my first season experiencing it - I've seen that a couple of wins can really change the way the league table looks for you. It can really change the way the season looks for you.

"We are just looking to get the first win and then kick on from there.

"It can change so quickly in this league, that's what we're kind of seeing week in, week out. All of us are seeing that, so that's our motivation to pick up wins and then we can be the ones that are pushing further up."

Former Celtic 'B' captain Otoo played in Dunfermline's last win, at Airdrieonians in December, which came immediately after their last victory at home - against Arbroath.

He said that their display in the former should provide the base for them to turn things around, adding: "When you go back to that game, there were a lot of players who are present now, so we just need to refocus our intention on just performing.

"When we perform, we know we might not get the result we want, but on any given day if we do perform to our best, we feel we will get a result.

"That's the baseline for everything at the minute, just looking to get a performance that we feel we did get in that Airdrie game.

"Get back to those levels, those intensity levels, organisation levels which was shown in that game and out it into the game on Saturday."