Saturday 18th January, 2014 at 2:36pm
There was a depressing sense of déjà vu at full-time as Thistle once again failed to collect maximum points at home. Once a more a draw was left to feel like a defeat with manager Alan Archibald commenting to [link:HOME] after the game;
“That’s the sorest we’ve felt all season to be honest. Our all round performance was great and we defended really well up until one individual error at the end and it feels like a defeat. The goal that we lost came from a simple long ball. It’s something that the centre backs should deal with, one needs to shout and it’s just about organisation. To be fair they had, to a man, been outstanding up until that point.”
Alan went on;
“We knew the threat that Kris Boyd had and we spoke about that and I thought that they did really well against him. I thought the whole team played very well for 89 minutes. Okay we sat a little deep for the last ten minutes but that perhaps was to be expected.”
Is the failure to win at home in the league starting to pray on the players mind and impact upon their performance, especially in the closing stages of games?
“I thought last week that it prayed on their mind and it was something psychological but this week I don’t think it affected them to be honest. I think the last ten minutes it was just a case of them being 1-0 up with ten minutes to go. I think that’s always the case when you don’t get a second goal you are always liable to lose a goal when you are hanging on.”
The manager included new signing Lee Mair in his starting eleven having just been signed the day before and he was happy with the performance of his newest recruit.
“I thought that Lee came in and did very well. I thought that he came in and organised the back four. I felt that it was a very good debut and he did everything that we asked of him. He organised well and brought a calmness to the back four for most of the game.”
There was also a starting place for Paul Gallacher and as the manager now reveals there was a major goalkeeping headache the day before the game.
“We had a bit of a goalkeeper nightmare yesterday. Paul Gallacher got injured on the Thursday and didn’t train on the Friday and Scott Fox then got injured on Friday. So this morning we had one unfit goalkeeper and one half fit goalkeeper. I thought Paul Gallacher came in and was outstanding. I thought he had got us out of jail when he saved the penalty and it was unlucky for us that our players didn’t help him out because he got them out of jail with a great save. Our players just didn’t react quickly enough. They were still feeling sorry for themselves at that point and thinking about the penalty.”
With Aaron Taylor-Sinclair now suspended for Tuesday game with St Johnstone and Stuart Bannigan also suspended the manager has another selection headache to face ahead of that game.
“Yes it’s a problem but we have Jordan McMillan that can come in and other people waiting to come into the team. It is a sore one that we will miss Taylor-Sinclair and Bannigan on Tuesday night but there’s another guys that can step up to the plate.”
