Saturday 29th August, 2015 at 3:14pm
Having seen his Thistle side go down 2-0 to an industrious Aberdeen side there was only one talking point post patch for Alan Archibald as he spoke to ptfc.co.uk. In the build up to Aberdeen’s opener, goalscorer, Adam Rooney, appeared to clearly handle the ball but Jags’ protests fell on deaf ears.
“The goal took the wind out of our sails a bit and I think the ref has to give a hand ball. I feel for them a little bit because I know it’s a bit of a grey area but where it leads to a goal like that I think he simply has to give it as a free kick.
“It proved to be a pivotal point in the game as well. I thought we came out for the second half and looked really bright,as if we could go out and hurt them. The decision and the goal killed us in that respect.”
The result means Archie’s wait for his first win of the season will be extended over the international break but he is determined to take the positives from the display.
“We’ll move on from it and the performance was much improved from the mach against Falkirk. We’ll go away and analyse the performance to take the positives out of it and build on those over the international break.
“I thought there wasn’t a lot in it in the first half and our keeper never really had a save to make. We made a couple of really good chances and that was good to see. You need to take the chances when they come along – especially against a team like Aberdeen.
“I am encouraged by what I saw today though and we will look to build on that and take it into the next game. Even when we were 2-0 down we were still looking to get forward and create chances.”
Frederic Frans was substituted after 40 minutes as he pulled up with a hamstring strain and he wasn’t the only one struggling by the conclusion of the match.
“Yes, Freddie has just strained his hamstring a bit, he’s with the medical team now who will assess him and we’ll take it from there. The positive is that it has come at a good time with the break so we’ll just need to wait and see. Gary Miller played through a strain in his hamstring too so we’ll need to let him rest and see how he is next week.”