Friday 14th July, 2017 at 7:35pm
Thistle’s 2017/18 campaign begins tomorrow at the Tony Macaroni Arena with the first competitive meeting against Livingston in over four years. The West Lothian side won the Ladbrokes League One title last season and will pose a stern test for Alan Archibald’s side.
With the final training session before competitive action finally returns over, ptfc.co.uk caught up with manager Alan Archibald to get his thoughts ahead of the game.
“We’re looking forward to the first competitive game of the season. All our focus when we got back together as a group in June was looking at this game against Livingston. We aimed to use the time to get the squad in the best shape possible and I think we’ve done that.
“We’ve played five friendly matches against a number of different sides to get prepared for the season. There have been some games where we’ve put out a strong starting side, and others where we’ve rotated a lot more to get everyone minutes into the leg and raring to go for the big kick off tomorrow.”
The opposition may spend the upcoming season in the Ladbrokes Championship but the gaffer has left no stone unturned in his preparations for the opening Betfred Cup tie.
“We’ve treated Livingston like we would any Premiership side. I was fortunate enough to see them in the flesh against Sunderland on Wednesday night and we’ve also had their games against Motherwell and Kilmarnock watched as well.
“The side are on a high after winning promotion last season and they’ll be full of confidence. We’ve given the players as much information as we can to get them ready for Saturday’s game.”
Thistle won all four Betfred Cup games last season but Archie knows the side will have to earn the right to call themselves Group H winners.
“We’re in a really tough group. We have three full time teams in our division which makes it very challenging. St Mirren and Livingston both finished last season strongly and will be looking to get off to a fast start this season.
“We’re going to have to be at our best in every game to get the results we want. Penalty kicks might come into it as well over the next four games and that is something that we have looked at as well. We’re ready for the trip to Livingston and there will be no excuses.”
More exclusive preview interviews with Kris Doolan and Chris Erskine as well as Jags gaffer Alan Archibald are now available to Jagzone subscribers. Log in now to see them. Jagzone members will also be able to watch highlights of the game.
Can’t make Livingston? Jagzone members can listen to live audio commentary of the match. JagZoneLIVE begins at 2:30
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Alan has committed, will you join him? 2017/18 season tickets are now on sale.
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