MORTON manager Jonatan Johansson says he doesn’t feel under pressure despite calls for the Ton boss to leave from the away support at East Fife on Saturday.

The Ton were dumped out of the Scottish Cup by the League One side.

Bob McHugh’s opener was quickly cancelled out by Anton Dowds, with Craig Watson scoring with 14 minutes to go to put the Fifers through.

Sections of the travelling support called for the manager to quit after seeing their side put out of the competition by the lower league team, which followed a disappointing 2-1 loss to Alloa Athletic last week.

But Johansson, who is in his first managerial job since joining the club back in September, says he’s determined to get things right at the Ton, and took full responsibility for the loss.

He told the Tele: “I don’t feel under pressure from the fans, it’s part of the job. As a player it’s part of where I am now.

“I understand the fans’ frustration, they come all this way to see the team lose weak goals.

“It was the same supporters who came to Alloa last week and they must be feeling the same frustration.

“Before these two games we felt we had two really good wins, we felt confident and we felt we were on the right track, so it’s difficult to put a finger on why we looked nervous in our own box.

“I would never criticise the fans. They’re the backbone of any club so they have a right to be frustrated at the whole team, the players and myself included.”

One big frustration for the manager in recent weeks has been in the transfer market.

Only Dylan Dykes has joined the club in the first 21 days of the transfer window, with the club trying to bring in more players after seeing seven leave the club over the last two months.

Johansson admitted he knew he had to make changes when he got the job last year, hinting the board had told him to cut the squad size after overspending in the first half of the campaign.

He added: “I knew that it would be tough to make changes in January when I took over.

“They said there was a lot of players here and the budget was overspent so we had to cut it down to make some savings, and use some of those savings for this transfer window.

“You can see we’ve had to cut the squad size quite a lot and we haven’t been able to bring anyone in and that’s just the reality of it.

“I’m trying to use some of that money we saved to bring in some players for those positions.

“But it’s a difficult window to do that, as there’s a lot of competition for good players and unfortunately we’re not in a position to compete financially so it’s something I’m trying to do.”