Saturday 4th October, 2014 at 6:56pm
The defeat on Saturday away to Kilmarnock was a tough one to take for the manager and players alike when they were back to training this week but Jags boss, Alan Archibald, is confident his players will come out fighting against Motherwell on Saturday.
Alan spoke to ptfc.co.uk in advance of the Premiership clash to give us the inside line from within the camp.
“We spoke after the game about how we felt some of the players were feeling sorry for themselves during the Killie game, we spoke about it on Monday too. I think with any team it can go two ways when you lose a couple of goals, you either stand and fight to get it back or feel sorry for yourselves and I think we only went one way on Saturday.
“I think the boys need to take responsibility, especially when we lose players to injury mid-way through the game. Not enough of them did last week and that’s why we lost the game 3-0. The players started looking for excuses, the astro pitch, the 120 minutes on Tuesday, but they aren’t excuses. They aren’t excuses when we win so they won’t be when we lose either.”
“The performances weren’t like us last week so hopefully it’s just a blip and we’ll get back to normal on Saturday.”
Similar to Thistle Motherwell have struggled for form and consistency so far this season and Archie admits that he isn’t sure what to expect.
“I saw them play against Hamilton in the cup midweek and it was a totally different team. I think his last three teams have been totally different and he’s got a few injuries to contend with as well, by the looks of the team he has picked.
“We might not really know what to expect from the line up but we do know that we’re going to get a team that is going to come out and have a real go. Obviously they’re coming in off the back of a bad result like ourselves and, like us, they’ll be looking for a good win to rectify that.”
The injury to Kallum Higginbotham has been well reported this week and, having seen the results of the scan it’s mixed news for the Thistle attacker.
“He’s going to need surgery so he’ll be going in at the start of next week. We don’t really know how long that will keep him out for until they open him up but it looks like for now like three or four weeks. It’s a very very small meniscus tear but it will very much depend on how it looks when they get in there.”
Although Higgy has claimed a lot of the plaudits so far this season Archie knows that it is just an opportunity for someone else to step in.
“It just means someone else has got to come in and step up. We’ll shuffle things about a bit as well. There were games last year where Higgy didn’t do so well and we still won so it just gives someone else a chance – it’s just one of those things in football.”
A run of results has been elusive for the Jags so far this season but, for Alan, it isn’t just the results that are frustrating.
“Getting a run of results is obviously the primary aim first and foremost but consistency within games is also important. Last season we would go out and dominate games whereas so far this season we’re only really doing that for 40, 50, 60 minutes in a game. If we can be brave on the ball and go out and get on top of teams I’ve no doubt the results will follow from there.”
