Wednesday 11th February, 2015 at 9:47am
Having conceded a goal after just 38 seconds it was always going to be an uphill task for Thistle boss, Alan Archibald, and his side against Celtic. Having said that, there were still positives to take, as he told ptfc.co.uk after the game.
“Conceding a goal that early obviously makes things very difficult from the start. What makes it more frustrating for us is that it comes from our kick off. I think from there the lads felt a bit sorry for themselves for the next 25 minutes to be honest.
“We got a reaction out of the boys as the half wore on and we had our best spell at the start of the second, by then though, most of the damage was already done. You can’t gift Celtic goals like we did tonight, they’re a hard enough team to start off with – we don’t need to be giving them easy goals.”
Thistle did look more confident in the second half and Archibald believes that was down to gaining a bit of belief.
“At the break we just told them to go believe in themselves and make it a game in the second half. We needed to be competitive all over the pitch tonight, I think you saw a bit of that in the second half but the damage was done by then.”
To add to the disappointment Archie felt a little hard done by on a couple of decisions.
“I think it was probably hand ball in the second half but we’ve had a few of those this season that haven’t been given. Other than that we did build up a bit of momentum and maybe a goal or a penalty at the time would have helped us out.
“Lyle had a couple of good chances, the header in the first half and the high one in the second. We got a couple of great balls whipped in and we’ve got to take advantage of those chances, especially against Celtic.”
The Thistle team had a fresh look to it, with five changes from the side that went out of the Scottish Cup on Saturday.
“Yea, we felt we had to freshen it up a bit. There’s a lot of football being played this week and we felt fresh legs would help on that front. I think the boys that came in did really well and have certainly staked a claim for Saturday.”
