Tuesday 27th August, 2013 at 2:08pm
Unlike a number of other Premiership sides it was a case of objective achieved last night for Thistle as an extra-time win over Cowdenbeath took us through to round three of this season’s League Cup competition.
[link:HOME] spoke with manager Alan Archibald after the match and he was naturally pleased to have seen his side progress to the next round.
“I said before the last round against Ayr United that our objective was to simply to get into the next round and that was again the case tonight. For some reason the press and some fans think that you can go out and run over teams but it’s not like that in football anymore; I think you can see that from the other results tonight. We’re just delighted to have got through to the next round.”
Alan continued;
“I said the players before the start of the game that we would have loads of possession but Cowdenbeath would always get that one chance in the game. That always happens; it’s very rare for a team not to get one chance during a match. They got their chance but thankfully Scott Fox made a fantastic save from the penalty low down to his right hand side.”
Scott Fox too had another excellent save with the score at 1-1. Said the Thistle manager;
“To be fair to Cowdenbeath that was probably during their best spell in the game. They had a wee five minute spell when it went to 1-1 and they had their tails up and they were very good. They bossed us a wee bit in that spell but the boys showed a bit of character to hold them off and get the victory.”
The manager was again disappointed to see his team concede an equaliser so soon after having taken the lead.
“That was something that we spoke about after the Hearts game and how important it is after you score to regroup and be tight. That 4 or 5 minute spell after you score is vitally important and we’ve not learned the lesson from the Hearts game because we again lost a goal soon after scoring. I was delighted though with their character to go on and get the two goals after that.”
The failure to convert chances into goals was another factor that caused the manager a little concern last night.
“I said to the boys that we need to start taking our chances. We can’t keep on creating the chances but not taking them.”
Christie Elliott though was on target with his first goal of the season having come off the bench in the 83rd minute again demonstrating the impact he can make in a game.
“It’s been frustrating for Christie. I don’t think he would want to be labelled a super sub but he always seems to make an impact when he comes on and again I thought he was very good when he came on.”
John Baird meantime continues to wait for his first Partick Thistle goal but his manager was pleased with his contribution last night commenting;
“I thought that their goalkeeper had a couple of great saves from John. John’s movement was good, he got into the box and he got into great areas. It’s not just falling for John at the moment, or for anyone else as it’s not just down to the strikers; it’s down to everyone else on the pitch as well.”
The manager was pleased too that Gabriel Piccolo got some extended time on the pitch though as the manager reveals that with the game into extra-time that presented its’ own problem for the Mexican defender.
“I’m in two minds about Gabby and the game time that he got. He’s not had a lot of game time so it was good to give him some of that but because he hasn’t had much game time he was actually struggling with a bit of cramp at the start of extra-time. He looked really comfortable throughout the game though. The only problem was their goal. I’ve not had the opportunity yet to have another look at it but our two centre halves got into a bit of a fankle to let their boy in to score.”
Finally with the transfer window due to close soon we wondered if there was any likliehood of transfer activity either in or out of the Club in the next few days.
“Not out I think, I hope not anyway, but hopefully we might get one more in. We’re still trying and we’ll keep trying up to the window closing.”
