Tue 9 August, 2016
Betfred Cup 
Tannadice Park, DundeeCammy Smith 10′
Cammy Smith 27′
Cammy Smith 30′ (pen)
Sean Welsh 65′ (pen)
Betfred Cup
Tue 9 August, 2016. Kick Off: - 19:45
Tannadice Park, Dundee
Thistle fans will be situated in the West Stand, located behind the goal closest to Dens Park with admission prices as follows:
Adults – £15
Concessions – £5
A concession qualifies as a full time student, under 18s, over 65s and disabled supporters.
Thistle have recorded five wins in their opening five games and head to Tannadice this evening looking to secure a place in the quarter finals of the Betfred Cup. Ptfc.co.uk caught up with manager Alan Archibald ahead of the clash.
“It’s been a great start to the campaign. We were hoping to continue our good Betfred Cup form into the league campaign and I’m delighted that we’ve done that. It took us ten games to get our first league win last year and to grab one on the opening day of the season is a good way to start.
“We’re looking to carry on the winning feeling and our trip to Tannadice gives us a great opportunity to do that. Dundee United are a totally different side from last season and have strengthened like a Premiership team so we know it will be an extremely difficult tie. We haven’t got a great record at Tannadice in cup competitions but we do have a group of players who have experience of winning at Tannadice from last season.”
Thistle reached the quarter finals of the tournament two seasons ago and Archie is looking to match that again this season.
“We would love to go on a cup run. It’s something our fans haven’t had over the last few years and when you see other clubs going on to lift trophies, it is something that makes you a little bit envious. We know that we will be in for a tough battle against Dundee United and our focus is firmly on that game. We need to get through this tie before we can start looking further into the competition.”
Liam Lindsay took a heavy knock during Saturday’s clash with Inverness and we asked the gaffer how he was progressing.
“Liam is 50/50 for the trip to Dundee. He was on the wrong end of a fair 50/50 challenge on Saturday and had to come off. We’ll give him every chance to make the game on Tuesday night though.
“Tomas Cerny also picked up a knock during Saturday’s game and we’ll assess how he is closer to kick off. Other than that we have only the long term guys who are unavailable to us.”
With Thistle not playing on Saturday, it gives Thistle’s players an opportunity to get a bit of rest ahead of the next league fixture at Pittodrie.
“We’re on a winning run and when you have such great results you want to keep playing. With no game on Saturday there is now a bit of a gap between tonight’s clash with Dundee United and our next league game with Aberdeen. On the flip side of that, it means we can possibly get players through the cup tie and know we have ten days to rest them ahead of the extremely tough trip to Pittodrie.”
There is only one focus at the moment for the coaching staff as they look to secure a quarter final berth.
“We’re only looking as far ahead as tonight’s clash at Tannadice. There will be a large Thistle support there tonight, they always back us in massive numbers, and we want to get through to the next round for them. They deserve a lengthy cup run and it’s up to us to deliver it for them.”
A supremely disappointing evening of Betfred Cup action saw Thistle crash out of the competition at the hands of Dundee United. In truth the 3-1 score line could have been worse for the Maryhill men had it not been for some heroic goalkeeping by Ryan Scully and some profligate finishing from the home team.
An understandably despondent Alan Archibald spoke to ptfc.co.uk shortly after full time.
“That isn’t even close to the team we have seen so far this season. We have been very good at times and came into this game full of confidence after Saturday but that was chalk and cheese from what we saw against Inverness. Tomas only had one save to make on Saturday but tonight it felt like every time they attacked us they could have scored and Ryan Scully probably had eight or nine saves to make, if not more.
“Ryan was the only one who came out with pass marks tonight to be fair. He kept the scoreline respectable. Fair play to Dundee United, I don’t want to take anything away from them as they played excellently but we really were dreadful tonight.”
Archibald did have to shuffle his defensive line up as both Tomas Cerny and Liam Lindsay fell victim to injuries picked up in the weekend’s 2-0 victory over the Highlanders, but the Thistle boss was quick to assert that this should not have had that big an impact on the team’s performance.
“We did have to make changes but it certainly shouldn’t have had that big an impact, they were enforced through injury and we should have the depth of squad to be able to deal with that. There is plenty experience in that side to go and defend so much better than we did tonight.
“At times when you’re under pressure you look for your more senior players to come together and pull you through but we didn’t do that tonight and it certainly cost us as we found ourselves 3-0 down after half an hour.
“They cut us open every time and we just could not handle the movement at all. I really can’t understand it because our defenders play against those kind of players every day in training with the likes of Steven Lawless and Chris Erskine. What’s more is we’ve analysed United like we would with any other game, they knew the threats but just did not come anywhere near dealing with it. We had a fantastic support here tonight and they deserved much, much better than that.”
