Foster: We need to finish games off

Tuesday 23rd March, 2021 at 1:57pm

Partick Thistle will have to get used to midweek fixtures for the rest of the season with two games a week becoming the norm for sides in League One and League Two. Their first such match comes against Cowdenbeath as the Blue Brazil visit Firhill in a Tuesday night Scottish Cup clash with the winners heading to Tannadice in the next round. Jags defender Richard Foster spoke to ptfc.co.uk ahead of the clash:

“We’re all looking forward to it because it’s another game. With the amount of games we’re going to be playing in the league; that’s the more important thing but this’ll help us get up to speed for the busy league schedule. At the end of the day, it’s the Scottish Cup and it’s always nice to play in cup competitions.”

After a 1-1 draw with Cove in the team’s return to football on Saturday, Foster says it was frustrating that the Jags didn’t get all three points from the fixture.

“We just really need to get over this bad habit of not finishing teams off. We’ve got that big chance at 1-0 to make it two and if we score there then it’s probably game over but that’s the story of the season so far. Megginson takes his goal well but we need to be putting teams to bed and scoring two or three goals when we’re on top.”

The full-back reckons there was an element of rust from both sides in that clash but says only matches will help them shirk that.

“In terms of fitness I feel good personally but there was definitely a bit of rustiness against Cove. I think looking at the game as a whole, it was one where you could tell neither team had played in two or three months but we’ll only get better in that regard. Nothing else replicates matches so the more we play the sharper we should get.”

While the Scottish Cup isn’t the priority for the club at the moment, Richard says going out and getting a win can only be good for the team.

“It gives us a chance to build a bit of momentum. We feel like we should have won on Saturday but we need to just get into the habit of winning games because, looking at the league table, we need to be winning near enough every game if we want to be in with a shout in the title race. We want to get on that winning trail and hopefully this game can be the start of a good run for us.”

League Two side Cowdenbeath come to Maryhill following a draw of their own in their return to competitive action against Annan Athletic and Foster expects a difficult game against the Central Park side.

“You can’t take any game for granted and we won’t be going into this one thinking we should be winning or anything like that. It’s up to us to make sure we turn up and play well, that we work hard and if we can do those things then we’re confident of winning the game, but we have to give Cowdenbeath the respect they deserve.”

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We’ll have extended highlights and a full game replay of our clash with Cowdenbeath on JagZone. Due to Scottish Cup holdback periods we will be unable to publish our full game replay and highlights packages until 24 hours after the match has been completed.