Dumbarton are still in a strong position to avoid the drop despite defeat to Raith Rovers, according to manager Stevie Aitken.

The Sons squandered a half-time lead to eventually go down 3-2 to their visitors on Saturday evening.

After beating Queen of the South during the week though to open up a five point gap on eleventh-placed Livingston, Aitken is confident his men can stay in the Championship.

He is calling on his players to cut out the errors that cost them dearly at the weekend though in their three crucial remaining fixtures of the campaign.

He said: “It's been a tough week. But we've won one and lost one - and the important thing is that we are still in a strong position.

"We put in a really good first half performance [against Raith Rovers], continuing where we left off against Queen of the South.

“I was really pleased with the first half, we were really at it and we scored a good goal.

“We spoke at half-time about how important it was to start the second half properly, but we started really slack and I thought we gave the ball away in needless areas, and ultimately that has cost us two goals.

"We gave away cheap possession three of four times, which was frustrating as we had gone in with a lead.

"So we're disappointed at the goals we lost. We shot ourselves in the foot.

“We never got going in the second half and Raith are a very good side, as they showed. There's a reason they're sitting fourth in the league."

There was a further blow dealt to Dumbarton’s survival hopes when Christian Nade, who has been in excellent goalscoring form since joining the club, was forced off during the game due to injury.

Aitken is desperately hoping though that March’s Championship player of the month will be back on the pitch as soon as possible.

“It looks like his hamstring,” he said.

“Hopefully it’s not too bad as he’s been terrific since he came in and if we lost him it would be a blow.”