Friday 26th August, 2016 at 2:17pm
Thistle face another tough match as the visit of Hearts to Firhill brings to a close the action for August. Manager Alan Archibald spoke to ptfc.co.uk shortly after training on Friday to give his thoughts on the game.
“It’ll be another very tough match for us. We know the quality that Hearts have in their squad. They’ve strengthened well during the summer and it will be another difficult Premiership game.
“Last season Hearts cruised in all three games against us last season, getting three victories against us and we’ll be looking to get one back on them. We know our record against the top teams has to improve in order to give us the chance to achieve what we want to this season.”
With plenty of positives to take from last week’s narrow defeat to Aberdeen, Archie is looking for his side to continue their improvement.
Last week against Aberdeen we were good. It was a moment of quality and a defensive mistake which cost us taking something from the game. We are looking for the boys to continue that level of performance and we’ll hope to cut out the mistakes to give ourselves the best chance of winning the game.
“There is very little amongst a lot of the teams in this league and we are looking to test ourselves against one of the sides predicted to finish higher in the division. It’ll be a very tricky game and we know that we’ll have to keep it tight at the back to give us the opportunity to win the game as it enters the later stages.”
There will be one enforced change with the suspension of Sean Welsh, something which will give the manager a selection headache.
“We’ve lost Sean for this game as a result of his red card and it leaves us a little bit short with Stuart Bannigan and Gary Fraser both out through injury. David Wilson played a number of games for us in the Betfred Cup so we know he is match sharp if called upon but we have a number of options for who we can play in midfield for the side.”
Finally, the manager brought us up to date with his injury news for the clash with the Edinburgh side.
“We’re looking pretty good in terms of numbers now, compared to what we were a few weeks ago. The only players missing are the long term ones in Bannigan, Dumbuya and Fraser. During the week Christie Elliott came through 90 minutes for the development squad which will have helped him a lot as he continues his progress to full fitness.”
