Friday 13th January, 2017 at 9:08am
Thistle play their first match of 2017 on Friday afternoon, facing Belgian side Lokeren in a friendly at La Manga Club. It’s been a tough week of training for the squad in Spain and Alan Archibald spoke to ptfc.co.uk shortly after the final training session of the week.
“It’s been a great week away for the squad. We’ve worked them hard with double sessions each day to get them back up to speed after the week of rest we gave them last week.
“Everything at La Manga has been great from the food to the pitches. We’ve been very well looked after and everything we’ve needed has been provided for us.”
With the weather in Glasgow a little chillier than in Spain, the gaffer was pleased to head out for the week’s training camp.
“It’s worked out really well for us with the way the weather has turned out in Glasgow. We’ve not missed a session and it has been really beneficial from that side of things. We know where we are going to be training and we know that we’ll be on high quality grass pitches which is a massive plus. The last thing we wanted was to give the players the week off and then be scrambling around looking for places to train, here we’ve had the security of knowing that training is guaranteed.
Thistle swing back into action against Lokeren this afternoon and Archie was keen to stress the importance of getting minutes under the belt for players.
“The game will be a very tough one against a top class Belgian side but we’ll be using it to get players match fitness. It’s been almost two weeks since we last played so it will be good to get back on the pitch in a game. We’ve been training with 16 players, not including goalkeepers, all week so we haven’t really had the opportunity to play a full size game and the friendly against Lokeren will give us the chance to do that.”
