Saturday 9th December, 2017 at 7:39pm
A chaotic December began for Partick Thistle with last week’s narrow 1-0 defeat by Hibernian. The loss left the Jags four points off eleventh spot; at the bottom of the Ladbrokes Premiership table. Thistle returned to action this afternoon with a trip to Rugby Park and unfortunately it was another defeat for the Maryhill men although there was nothing narrow about it. A harrowing 5-1 loss at the hands of Killie represents the Jags’ heaviest pre-split league defeat since the 2013/14 season. Thistle manager, Alan Archibald, spoke to ptfc.co.uk following the game.
To begin, Alan expressed his deep disappointment in his side’s performance as his team slumped to yet another defeat.
“I don’t want to dress the game up. We lost 5-1 to one of our bottom six rivals. We were well in the game at half-time but the defending for the goals was ridiculous and you won’t win any football match defending like that. It doesn’t matter how you play when in possession if you defend like that without it.”
Archie spoke of his anger when the Jags conceded a soft third after a promising start to the second half.
“I thought we began brightly in the second half, bringing the game to them but then we lose another goal and it was probably the most frustrating of the lot. The goalkeeper just punts it up and we don’t deal with it, we look timid, and they capitalised.”
After the Killie third, Thistle fell out of the game, conceding twice more and looking toothless. The gaffer gave us his synopsis of the second 45 minutes.
“I think that we were lacking a leader on the park at that point. Someone who can put that belief back into the team when we concede. Nevertheless, the lads let their standards slip and some of the heads went down during the second half. Anyway, we’ve got Motherwell on Wednesday night and now all focus is on that game.”
Alan also gave us a brief update on the injury situation.
“We might have Abdul Osman back shortly although it’s not up to us. We need to get the all-clear from the surgeon for Abdul which is proving to be frustrating. It’s tough with so many injured players but pointing that out won’t change anything. We have to do our best with the players available and even with some key players missing, we shouldn’t be performing like we did today.”
As Alan mentioned, Motherwell are Thistle’s next opponents as they come to the Energy Check Stadium at Firhill on Wednesday night in what will be another important clash. Kick-off is at 19:45 in Maryhill.
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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.
