Saturday 2nd December, 2017 at 7:17pm
After two successive home wins against Dundee and then St. Johnstone, Partick Thistle went over a month without a game at the Energy Check Stadium at Firhill. The Jags returned to their Maryhill home with a match against Hibernian. Unfortunately for the hosts, it wasn’t to be three home wins in a row as a cross from deep that came off the head of Adam Barton found the corner of the net. That goal proved enough for the Easter Road side as they saw the game out for a 1-0 win to leave Thistle at the bottom of the Ladbrokes Premiership. Jags boss, Alan Archibald, spoke to ptfc.co.uk after the game.
Alan started with a lot of praise for his side as he expressed his happiness over the team’s performance.
“The result is a sore one because I thought we played ever so well. It was end-to-end stuff at times but I felt we had a couple of the game’s best chances. Their goalkeeper had to make a couple of really good saves whereas Tomas Cerny didn’t have much to do. Overall, there were plenty of positives.”
Going into a hectic December with another seven games to be played this month, Archie stressed the importance of staying positive with the fixtures coming thick and fast.
“We’re not going to feel down about the result. It was a good performance. Now we go into a huge game against Kilmarnock so we have to keep the heads up and start working towards a better result there.”
With his side now four points below 11th place, the gaffer knows how crucial the aforementioned clash with Killie is.
“It’s vitally important that we stay in that pack at the bottom of the table and avoid being cut adrift. Against the teams at the top of the table you can’t expect to win every game but we have to start getting the victories against those around us.”
Archie was keen to highlight the efforts of Jordan Turnbull who today put in a fine display in the unfamiliar role of left-back.
“I thought he was excellent today. He faced a tough challenge in the form of Martin Boyle, who has incredible raw pace and energy. Jordan isn’t a full-back but we’ve been working on that in training. Trying to create different options for us in terms of shape and I think he now feels comfortable enough as part of the back four.”
Alan and his squad now look towards next Saturday’s meeting with Kilmarnock at Rugby Park as the Jags continue their fight to get away from the foot of the table. Kick-off in Ayrshire is 15:00.
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Article Copyright © 2017. Permission to use quotations from this article online is only granted subject to appropriate source credit and hyperlink to ptfc.co.uk.
