Tuesday 2nd February, 2016 at 2:01pm
Alan Archibald spoke to ptfc.co.uk earlier ahead of tonight’s Scottish Ladbrokes Premiership fixture with Motherwell. We began with his deadline day additions he made in Antonio German and Aidan Nesbitt.
“Signing Antonio gives us a lot of versatility. He can play up front or on the wing, so he’ll be able to add something to our squad. He scored a lot of goals recently in India, so he’ll be confident that he could do the same for us. It’s his first time in Scotland so we’re hoping it will click from him. He hasn’t played for a couple of months so it might take a while to get his match sharpness back.
“Aidan is a promising youngster from Celtic. He’s 19 later this week I believe and we’re looking forward to working with him. He’s already made his senior debut for Celtic so he’s highly regarded by Ronny Delia and his coaching staff. He knows he will have to fight for his place like everyone else, and there is no expectation that he will start every game just because he’s on loan.”
Alan was clearly pleased with the additions he had made during January which makes his squad stronger for the league run in.
“The squad is stronger now. A few games ago we could barely fill the bench and we’ve now got everyone back fit. It makes a massive difference that Mathias Pogba, Gary Fraser and Christie Elliott are now all fit and ready to go. Ryan Edwards is back from Australia duty and added with the new boys it means we’ll have a strong squad to pick from, with competition fierce for places.”
There was huge disappointment around Firhill on Saturday when the match against Dundee United was called off.
“I personally thought the pitch was playable. I’ve seen it a lot worse and I think we would have got a decent game on it. The Dundee game went on in conditions that I personally thought were worse and it’s disappointing that Saturday’s game was off. We were all raring to go and looking to get the three points, so it’s always disappointing when the game is called off.”
One of the consolations of Saturday’s game being postponed meant Archie and Scott Paterson were able to travel to Dundee to watch Motherwell in person.
“We travelled up on Saturday to watch them and they were slightly unfortunate to only get a draw. Motherwell are a very solid unit, and they don’t concede a lot of goals in games. They are slightly similar to us in that they didn’t have the greatest of starts and have really pushed on from where they were earlier in the season. We know it’ll be an extremely tough game and we’ll have to be at our best to get all three points.”
