Saturday 14th February, 2015 at 10:17am
Alan Archibald spoke to ptfc.co.uk ahead of the team travelling north to face Paul Hartley’s Dundee side. The gaffer was in good spirits after a difficult week, and was looking forward to getting his team back on the pitch come 3pm on Saturday.
“We’ve had a couple of really good ties against Dundee so far this season and we’re all looking forward to what will hopefully be a good game. They’re a good side and we’ll certainly have a challenge on our hands, but we believe we have enough to go hurt them and win the game.
“Before Christmas we conceded a couple of late goals that cost us points but in the last few weeks it has been the first 10 or 15 minutes that have been where the damage has been done. Even small lapses of concentration can really hurt teams, especially in the Premiership, and we really need to work to cut them out.
“If you don’t start at the right tempo then you can really struggle to break teams down. We’ll be looking for a big start on Saturday and as long as we get that, and start shifting the ball around like we know we can, we definitely have what it takes to get that result.
“It’s much easier to start a game at the right tempo than to start slowly and have to get the tempo back from there. As long as we remember that on Saturday we can go out and get a result. We’ve been training at high tempo all week and that’s all you can really do to try and make sure they come out and play that way come kick off. From there the boys just need to remember their jobs and concentrate for the full 90 minutes.”
In terms of team news, Alan has a couple of concerns.
“Dan and Lyle are both carrying knocks but we’ll give them every chance. Other than that we have Sean Welsh and McMillan who are both unavailable.”
