Wednesday 27th December, 2017 at 11:43am
A midweek trip to Pittodrie separates two home Ladbrokes Premiership matches as a crowded December period comes to a conclusion. The Jags moved off the foot of the table with a 1-0 win against Hamilton Accies on Saturday and the side head to the Granite City looking to improve their away record. Thistle boss, Alan Archibald spoke to ptfc.co.uk ahead of the meeting.
Archie began by describing just how difficult the game would be as his side prepares to face the league’s second best side.
“It’s going to be very tough. They had a slight lull but they’ve got back on track to a degree. They had two great performances against St. Johnstone and Hibernian and then lost to Celtic away but that doesn’t mean they’re off form again. They’ll play very differently in a game against us than they did at Parkhead and we have to be ready for them.”
After getting through another game without serious injury problems, the gaffer is feeling good about his selection options.
“We’ve got Jordan Turnbull coming back into the team after his suspension which gives us even more room for manoeuvre. We moved things about on Saturday and it worked for us so we know that we have the option to switch things up. Also, Martin Woods got another good chunk of time on the pitch at the weekend which can only help him and the team. Overall, we have more options than we’ve had since August which is great.”
Miles Storey makes his first trip to Pittodrie since leaving Aberdeen during the summer and will be desperate to show his former employers what they are missing out on.
“Miles essentially missed a year of football with Aberdeen. He was on the bench a lot and was never really given the chance to get going. We were keen to get him and in the end we did. He’s had some really good moments for us and we’re just giving him a platform to play on. We saw against Hamilton that other attackers can do a job too so it’s nice to have options that offer different things. If we do pick him for the game, then we’ll be looking for a performance out of him.”
As the winter break approaches, some of Thistle’s long term injured players have begun training as they step up their return to first team action.
“We’ve had Abdul Osman and Mustapha Dumbuya back in full training for the first time over the last week and Callum Booth is doing ball work so we hope to have them back in contention for the end of January. James Penrice will also come back from what has been a great loan spell at Livingston as an option so that’s like four new players potentially. We had been looking at potential transfer targets because we can’t afford to just look short term. We’d focussed on full-back because we’ve seen players like Steven Lawless and Jordan Turnbull filling in there which isn’t ideal but if we can get the guys I mentioned back then the options are much better.”
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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.
