Saturday 1st September, 2018 at 7:20pm
Partick Thistle continued their start to the new Championship season with a home clash against Greenock Morton this afternoon. The Jags returned to Maryhill after last weekend’s defeat by Dundee United looking to make amends for that performance by beating the Ton for a second time this term. The Cappielow side came into the game undefeated in their opening three league games, however, they left Glasgow having been served their first loss of the 2018/19 campaign. The Jags took the lead in the 49th minute through Chris Erskine as he turned home a Craig Slater cross and should have had a second six minutes later when Kris Doolan fired home off the underside of the bar but despite the ball crossing the line and rippling the net, the goal was not given. Nevertheless, the hosts held out for the victory with Thistle securing their first clean sheet of the league season as they moved onto six points for the season. Jags boss, Alan Archibald spoke to ptfc.co.uk following his side’s merited triumph.
Archie began by discussing the most memorable moment of the match which was Kris Doolan’s disallowed goal. Everyone in the stadium saw the ball cross the line except the match officials who ruled the goal out to everyone’s surprise.
“I’m calm now because we’ve won the game but had that cost us I might be in a different mood. It was a pretty blatant error and when the referee and linesmen watch it back, they’ll see as much. From my point of view, I was pleased with the way the boys reacted. They didn’t let the anger affect their performance and continued pushing for a second. At the end of the day, it didn’t affect the result and we’re delighted to get the points.”
The gaffer then spoke more about the game as a whole, admitting that the visiting Ton side were the better side in the opening stages.
“They were on top early on and Cammy makes a good save to keep it at 0-0 in the first few minutes. If that goes in it’s a totally different game but we got away with it. We came into the game after about 35 minutes and looked the better side at the end of the first half but we can’t afford to give our opponents 35 minutes of dominance because on another day, we would have been punished.”
However, Alan was pleased with his side’s second half display as they took the lead, came close to extending that lead and then saw the game out.
“We came out for the second half by carrying on what we had started at the end of the first half which was pleasing. This season we’ve been guilty of slow starts to the second half but it was the exact opposite today. Getting the goal while we were on top was key as well and even ignoring Kris’ ghost goal, we had other chances to double the lead. Also, defensively, we gave them very little. Niall Keown and Sean McGinty did very well together and getting the clean sheet will be a boost for them.”
A more in depth video interview with Alan Archibald is available now to Jagzone subscribers and will be followed by reaction from Kris Doolan. An interview with new loan signing Dan Jefferies will be available on Sunday afternoon. Log in now to see it as soon as it is available.
Highlights will be added shortly and will be free for Jagzone subscribers.
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Article Copyright © 2018. Permission to use quotations from this article online is only granted subject to appropriate source credit and hyperlink to ptfc.co.uk.
