Saturday 24th November, 2012 at 9:11pm
Many people consider it to be a three horse race at the top of the First Division but there is at least one side who will have something to say about that, and they are coming to Firhill tomorrow afternoon.
Unbeaten in the league since September, Livingston will arrive at Firhill as arguably the division’s form team. As we aim to bounce back from our frustrating loss to Hamilton last weekend, Livingston will view tomorrow’s fixture as an opportunity for them to move within just four points of us.
With our fixture last weekend played on the Friday evening that handed our management team the opportunity to take in Livingston’s match with Falkirk and they were suitably impressed. Said Jackie McNamara;
“Myself and Simon Donnelly took in Livingston’s game with Falkirk last weekend and it looks as if Gareth Evans is carrying on the good work done by John Hughes. We were both very impressed with how Livingston played last week, especially during the first half and the game could easily have been over by half-time.”
“I like the philosophy that Livingston have with regard to how they play the game. They like to come out and play and that bodes well for an entertaining game tomorrow. The system that Livingston deployed against Falkirk was entertaining and their movement and passing was excellent. We will need to make sure that we pass the ball well ourselves on Saturday.”
“We are at home though and, as always, it is what we do that matters albeit we will need to make some changes to the team with Paul Paton, for example, suspended. Any changes, however, provide an opportunity for others to come and stake a claim for a place in the team.”
“In addition to the aforementioned suspended Paul Paton we will also be without Sean Welsh, Scott Fox and Ryan Scully. We also have a few players that have been struggling with illness during the week.”
“The good news is that Scott Fox has been responding well to treatment and it now looks as if he won’t be out for as long as we first feared. Ryan Scully tweaked his knee during the warm up at Hamilton and while he won’t feature today we expect that he should be fit for next week’s game.”
“One area that we will need to improve in is in the final third of the park. We got into plenty of promising positions against Hamilton on Friday but we were unable to capitalise on any of them. I felt that the first half of the Hamilton game was a bit scrappy but we played a lot better in the second, except for that last third.”
Partick Thistle Stats
Current Form – Last Five Games
W D L F A
3 1 1 14 3
Scorers Season 2012-2013
Steven Lawless 9
Chris Erskine 8
Kris Doolan 7
Steven Craig 5
Ross Forbes 3
Stuart Bannigan 2
Aaron Muirhead 2
Sean Welsh 2
Conrad Balatoni 1
Christie Elliott 1
Stephen O’Donnell 1
Aaron Sinclair 1
Own Goal 1
Last Game
Irn-Bru Scottish League First Division
Friday November 16th 2012
Hamilton Accies 1, Partick Thistle 0
Livingston Stats
Current Form – Last Five Games
W D L F A
3 2 0 9 6
Scorers Season 2012-2013
Marc McNulty 7
Iain Russell 7
Jordan Morton 3
Keaghan Jacobs 2
Stefan Scougall 2
Anthony Andreu 1
Bobby Barr 1
Dylan Easton 1
Callum Fordyce 1
Liam Fox 1
Last Game
Irn-Bru Scottish League First Division
Saturday November 17th 2012
Livingston 2, Falkirk 1
Last Meeting
Irn-Bru Scottish League First Division
Saturday September 15th 2012
Livingston 1, Partick Thistle 2
Teams
Livingston: McNeil, Fordyce (Easton), Booth, Tena, C Barr, Docherty, B Barr, Russell, Andreu, Scougall (McNulty), Morton.
Thistle: Fox, O’Donnell, Bannigan, Paton, Muirhead, Archibald, Lawless (Sinclair), Welsh, Craig (Elliott), Murray, Erskine.
Scorers
Livingston: Morton (59)
Thistle: Lawless (38, 48)
Crowd: 1,745
Match Highlights
Match Details
Irn-Bru Scottish League First Division
Saturday November 24th 2012
Partick Thistle v Livingston
Kick-off: 3:00pm
Prices
Adults: £17
OAP (65+): £12
16-21: £12
Full Time Education: £12
Programme: £2.50
Match Officials
Referee: John McKendrick
Assistant Referees: David McGeachie and Paul O’Neill
Other First Division Fixtures
Dunfermline Athletic v Dumbarton
Falkirk v Hamilton Accies
Morton v Cowdenbeath
Airdrie United v Raith Rovers
