David Gray: 'I can't keep picking players who make mistakes'

What did you make of this afternoon?

“It was very frustrating. I feel like I’m repeating myself because of what happened last weekend. The way the game started we were on the front foot but the first time Celtic went forward, an individual error led to us losing a goal, which isn’t good enough - especially given everything we’d talked about pre-game.

“It’s a tough-enough test to come here any time, but you can’t give an opposition of that level a goal of a start and for the first 30 minutes, until we found our way back in the game from a set-piece and a really good header [from Mykola Kukharevych]. 

“Before then we’d had to tweak the system to make ourselves harder to beat because at that point Celtic were dominating and we slipped back into what it was for the majority of the game last weekend. That really disappointed me.

"The reaction from when we scored to half-time, I felt we were a bit more aggressive, we took a bit of confidence and belief, started to get forward a bit more and a bit more in their face.

“The message at half-time was that we probably didn’t deserve to be in the game because of how dominant Celtic had been, and everything we’d talked about before the game.  We knew we needed to start better in the second half and I thought we did up to a point.

“Then another individual error; a lapse, one mistake becomes two mistakes, we lost a goal, and from that point, I felt Celtic completely dominated the game. We slipped back into that same mode again. It’s just not acceptable.”

How do you eradicate those errors and stop it becoming a habit?

“We need to coach the players and show them. We can’t keep making those mistakes. There is going to be more competition for places and the squad is going to get stronger as the days and weeks go on. 

“Everyone playing at the moment - has the level been good enough? No. We’re not at the level right now. So I can’t keep picking the same players who are making mistakes all the time. 

“We know it’s been a tough start but we’ve made it tougher for ourselves by making mistakes and not doing what we should be doing. Moving forward, we’ve got two massive games before the international break and we need to start putting points on the board as quickly as possible.”

Is it mentality rather than ability?

“Nobody makes mistakes on purpose, at all. It happens. It can be down to a lack of confidence, the decision at the time - it could be a variety of things. It’s certainly not just down to technical ability.  We’ve got good players in the building, in the dressing room. But we can’t keep making mistakes. 

“We can’t have one mistake becoming two mistakes because as soon as that happens you definitely lose goals, and we’ve done that in the last three games and we need to fix it as quickly as possible.”

Ideally, how many players would you like to bring in?

“I’ve said this many times, it’s not about the number of players we’re bringing in. While the window’s open, and if there’s ever an opportunity, the club has been very supportive and we’ll try to continue improving the squad as much as we can but it won’t just be a certain number we want to bring in, it will be based on whether or not they can make the squad better.”

For the third goal, do you try to make sure the players execute it better or is it about going longer earlier?

“It’s a bit of both. It’s decision-making at the time - it’s something we work on all the time.  If you look at a couple of situations before the goal, Marvin Ekpiteta put a couple of balls into the channel to go short to then go longer which we got a little bit of success from, so it’s the decision-making in the moment. 

“We know Celtic are going to press aggressively, they always do and they’re very good at it. But you need to be brave enough to play under that pressure. If you can break the press you might get an opportunity on the other side of it.

“But it was just a poor backpass at the wrong time. It was into the wrong position and on his wrong side, and the mistake after that is that we didn’t do enough to then stop the goal. That’s the frustrating part - that it’s so avoidable.

"We didn’t deserve to be in the game at half-time; we were lucky, but credit to the boys for digging in and putting bodies on the line. You have to ride your luck at times in football but to then find ourselves 3-1 down from our own errors was really tough to take."

What’s the attitude from the players - do they need an arm around the shoulder or a kick up the backside?

“One thing we can’t do is make excuses for anyone, myself included. It’s a tough start but we’re making it tougher for ourselves with the way we’re losing goals, and a lot of the time it’s from individual errors rather than a collective thing. It’s something we need to fix. 

“There will be players suffering more than others and not everyone responds in the same way. Some players will need a cuddle, and some will need to be told straight, but whichever it is we try to do it as constructively as possible.

“It’s still very early, we want to keep everyone together and try to get back to where I believe we can be."