Friday 8th September, 2017 at 1:02pm
As the Thistle team prepare to travel up to Dingwall, ptfc.co.uk caught up with new signing, Paul McGinn. With his first week of training under his belt the new Jags full back is raring to go.
“I’ve really enjoyed it, there’s been an excellent tempo to the sessions. Down south training tended to be more focused on structure and I personally thought it lacked a bit of intensity but up here it has been a really good mix of both and I definitely prefer that.
“The way we train and play I think suits my style. Having said that, I am adaptable too and I can slot into different formations and play in different areas which should make it easier for me to hit the ground running.”
We often hear about how easy the Firhill dressing room is to settle into for new players and it seems that, for McGinn, it was no different.
“It’s a really good group of guys to work with. Usually when you move to a club you meet the guys who make you feel welcome and you ask them who the difficult guys are but there’s none of that here. Everyone has made me feel part of the team straight away and that makes getting up to speed in training so much easier.
“It helps that I know a few of the lads from having played up against them before. I also know Blair quite well as our paths crossed at Queen’s Park – I had just left as he was coming through.”
With plenty of experience playing in Scotland Paul knows how soul destroying a journey back from the Highlands can be if the team suffers defeat.
“It’s a long trip up there at the best of times but the journey back down feels much shorter if you’ve won. I’ve been on the end of both sides of it – I’ve won and lost up there – so I know how it can feel.”
With Thistle still bottom of the table with no points it would be easy for the new boy to fear the worst but McGinn is quite clear in his focus for the upcoming game and insitst there are plenty of positives to take from a difficult start to the season.
“We can’t rely on the excuse of us having had a tough run any more. I also think that, having watched the games, Thistle have matched a lot of the so called bigger teams and may with a bit of extra luck we might have had more points on the board at this stage. The important thing now is to start winning games, we need to start getting these results over the line and if it’s not pretty then so be it – the win is most important right now.
“The atmosphere in the dressing room is still really good and there’s certainly no reason to panic at this early stage. You’ve seen plenty of teams recover from a poor start and it seems to be part of Thistle’s story every year.
“We just need to go and play our game and forget about where we are in the league. If we work as a unit and play as we know we can the result will look after itself.”
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