Saturday 21st December, 2013 at 2:29pm
Thistle will be looking for an early Christmas present of three points tomorrow when they head down to Rugby Park to face a Kilmarnock side that sit just one place and a couple of points below Thistle in the league table.
The close proximity of the two teams to each other adds just a little extra significance to tomorrow’s fixture with Thistle manager Alan Archibald seeing it as an opportunity for his team. He commented to [link:HOME] after today’s training session.
“We see tomorrow’s game as a winnable one for us and with Kilmarnock just below us in the league it gives us an opportunity to open up a bit of a gap on them. The football comes at a fast and furious rate at this time of the season and after tomorrow’s game we have a couple of home games in quick succession. We are desperate to go into those two games with the confidence that a win at RugbyPark would give us.”
Alan continued;
“Just as we will see tomorrow’s game as an opportunity so too will Kilmarnock. They know that a win tomorrow would see them leapfrog us in the league table. We probably should have beaten them at Firhill earlier in the season. I felt that Kris Boyd was the difference for them that day. He is a top quality striker and the goal that he scored that afternoon was a great goal; it was really no more than a half chance for him. He’s obviously a real danger man tomorrow but Kilmarnock now have a lot of good young players in their team. Tomorrow’s game is going to be a very difficult one but, as I said, one we feel we can win if we play to our full potential.”
The manager, however, will be without the services of a few players tomorrow.
“Gary Fraser is still suspended and Sean Welsh will miss out as well. It looks as if we are going to be without the services of Isaac Osbourne for a couple of months which is a real blow for us. He’s injured that ankle before and the fact that his injury happened in a game that was abandoned just adds to the frustration. The fact that the St Johnstone game was abandoned at half-time means now that Gary Fraser would not be available to play against Celtic on New Year’s Day. Gary, Sean Welsh and Isaac Osbourne are all key midfield players for us and having them all out at the same time is obviously not ideal.”
It isn’t all bad news though.
“Stephen O’Donnell did some running today and although he isn’t entirely match fit he will be added to the squad that we will take down to Kilmarnock tomorrow.”
Partick Thistle Stats
Current Form – Last Five Games
W D L F A
0 1 4 2 13
Scorers Season 2013-2014
Kris Doolan 6
Aaron Muirhead 4
Steven Lawless 3
Christie Elliott 2
Conrad Balatoni 1
Ross Forbes 1
Kallum Higginbotham 1
Stephen O’Donnell 1
Last Game
Scottish Premiership
Saturday December 7th 2013
Partick Thistle 1, Hibs 1
Kilmarnock Stats
Current Form – Last Five Games
W D L F A
1 0 4 6 17
Scorers Season 2013-2014
Kris Boyd 8
Barry Nicholson 2
Darren Barr 2
Sean Clohessy 2
Sammy Clingan 1
Chris Johnston 2
Jackson Irvine 1
Last Game
Scottish Premiership
Saturday December 14th 2013
Kilmarnock 1, Dundee United 4
Last Meeting
Scottish Premiership
Saturday September 21st 2013
Partick Thistle 1, Kilmarnock 1
Teams
Thistle: Fox, O’Donnell, Taylor-Sinclair, Welsh, Muirhead, Balatoni, Bannigan, Doolan, Lawless (Elliott), Osbourne (Craigen), Higginbotham (Forbes).
Kilmarnock: Samson, Tesselaar (McKeown), Irvine, Barr, Nicholson, Boyd, Clohessy, Ibrahim (Stewart), Gardyne (Gross), Pascali, Bouzid.
Scorers
Thistle: Muirhead (11)
Kilmarnock: Boyd (47)
Crowd: 4,310
Match Details
Scottish Premiership
Saturday December 21st 2013
Kilmarnock v Partick Thistle
Kick-off: 3:00pm
Prices
Supporters Buses Information
Match Officials
Referee: Craig Thomson
Assistant Referees: Graham Chambers and Ralph Gordon
Fourth Official: Crawford Allan
Other Premiership Fixtures
Celtic v Hearts
Dundee United v RossCounty
Hibernian v St Johnstone
Inverness Caledonian Thistle v Aberdeen
Motherwell v St Mirren
