Saturday 1st February, 2014 at 2:41pm
After Saturday’s game with Dundee United the obvious question to ask Thistle manager Alan Archibald was whether it was a point gained or two lost?
“It was a bit of both. I thought that we had enough pressure in the second half to perhaps go on and nick a second goal. To be fair I felt that we had the better chances in the first half as well and that they scored against the run of play.”
The manager though was disappointed to see his side caught on the counter attack.
“That was very disappointing because up to then we’d had the better chances in the game. This was something that we had spoken to the players about and something that we had worked on. To be fair Jordan McMillan has put a great ball into the box and United have scored ten seconds later from our cross. That’s very, very disappointing because the players were made more than aware that United are capable of doing that; they are a good team and they’ve done that to umpteen other teams this season. I was delighted though with the reaction and the character the players showed to come back from that.”
Alan continued;
“When it was 1-0 to United we were having plenty of pressure and balls were getting whipped into the box but they just weren’t dropping for us and you began to think that this might prove to be one of those days but thankfully the boys showed great character and hunger to keep going and we perhaps got a bit of luck with the goal with the ball taking a slight deflection. We’ve not had much of that kind of luck at Firhill this season and we’ll take that all day long. I thought that Gary deserved his goal in any case as he was outstanding.”
Prior to his equalising goal Fraser had tested the United keeper with a fierce effort during the opening 45 minutes.
“He’s got that in his locker. He does that in training every day. To be honest I think the goalkeepers with the power that he gets in his shots. I thought that he showed a great composure today and a great calmness as well; he sometimes plays the game like an experienced player.”
The manager too was pleased with the performance of new boy Prince Buaben.
“I think you could tell that he hadn’t spent a great deal of time with us. He just came in yesterday and did a bit of training. I think you saw his quality the longer the game went on; he got better and better and hopefully we will get the best out of him.”
With no fixture next weekend the next couple of weeks will give all the new players the opportunity to get to know their new surrounds a bit better.
“It will allow them to get to know the rest of the lads and build working relationships with them. You could see today that Prince didn’t really know anybody though we started to see his quality in the second half. The two weeks we’ve got now will allow him, George Moncur and Chris Erskine to settle in.”
