JAMES MCPAKE is expecting a tough examination of his unbeaten side’s credentials this afternoon but said it’s “about the performance” of his players.

The Pars boss takes his team to Montrose on Saturday on the back of Tuesday’s win at Clyde, which stretched their unbeaten start to 11 games, and extended their games on the road without conceding a goal to five.

The fourth-top Links Park outfit, bossed by Athletic legend, Stewart Petrie, have only lost once at home in the league this season, and were edged out at KDM Group East End Park by Nikolay Todorov’s goal in August.

“When they came to East End Park, it took us a while before we got the goal,” McPake remembered.

“I’ve seen them a couple of times, and they’re a good side.

“We know the history with their manager and our football club as well, and that always comes up, and I’ve been up there enough when I had the under-20s and reserves at Dundee, so I know the place pretty well. But we can only focus on ourselves.

“It’s about the performance. If we can go up and there perform then we’ll hopefully come away with a positive result.

“For as long as it took us to get that second goal, I felt we were really comfortable in the Clyde game, and some of the football we played was excellent. It’s a similar pitch to what we’re going on so, for everyone that knocks artificial pitches in this league – now, I’m one who would hate to play on them, if I was still playing just now – but they are what they are, and we’re comfortable on them.

“We can’t talk about anything like that. There’s no excuses.

“I’m sure we’ll have a great travelling support, like we did at Clyde, which was amazing on a cold Tuesday night after they had been at East End Park on the Saturday.

“The fans will be up there in numbers and they’ll be demanding that we put a performance on for them, so we’ve got to go out and try and do that.”

On his team’s unbeaten record, McPake agreed it is one to be proud of, but he added: “We’ll go over the bits and pieces that we could have done better, and then full focus on Montrose.

“I’ve watched the Clyde game back, we’ve gone over the stuff we should have done better, and now we’re onto Montrose.

“The rest of the games are forgotten about because it’s just one game at a time and that’s the truth.”

The Pars gaffer, however, is set to be without Lewis McCann, who he said picked up a "bad" hamstring injury against the Bully Wee.

The 21-year-old had replaced Todorov as a 64th minute substitute in Tuesday’s 2-0 win over the Bully Wee, but was then forced off with eight minutes left.

Northern Ireland under-21 international McCann was seen being helped away by two members of the Athletic backroom staff at the side of the pitch, and McPake revealed that his player was “devastated” after the game.

“It is a bad hamstring injury. I am gutted for him,” McPake said.

“He is in there, he is devastated, but the one thing that I will guarantee, and I can safely say about this football club, is I have only been here three or four months, but the way they have looked after injured players, or players that have been ill or anything, is that we will go to the best people.

“The medical team will assess him tomorrow, we will get it scanned, and whatever needs done... hopefully it is nothing, then it is just a rehab job, but he will certainly see the best person that we can find to look at that hamstring.

“The club is magnificent in that and deserve huge credit for that because, I’ll be honest with you there are not enough clubs in Scotland do that.

“And that is talking from experience.”