Saturday 8th September, 2018 at 6:51pm
After a 5-0 win in Stanraer kicked off Partick Thistle’s 2018/19 Irn-Bru Cup campaign, a trip to Methil beckoned as the Jags took on East Fife for the first time in 16 years. However, Bayview marked the end of the Challenge Cup road for the Maryhill men as the Fifers fought back from a goal down to win 2-1 with Scott Agnew and Rory Currie providing the firepower after Andréa Mbuyi-Mutombo had given the visitors the lead. Jags boss, Alan Archibald spoke to ptfc.co.uk following an awful result for his team.
He began by analysing the first half during which he felt his side had played well and deserved their lead that was taken into half-time.
“The game was scrappy to begin with but I felt we grew into things and were good value for our lead. There were moments when we lifted the tempo that I felt we looked a class above as we should but even so, we didn’t create enough. Nevertheless, Andréa took his goal well and overall I was pretty pleased with the first half.”
He then compared that with his side’s second half display which was massively sub-par with East Fife turning the game around to secure progression.
“We asked for a bit more intensity from the lads in the second half and we didn’t get it whatsoever. In fact, we got the complete opposite as our guys really fell away. We let them back into things when we should have just stayed calm and controlled the game. We became panicked and allowed them too many chances. At the other end, we were even less efficient in the final third and barely troubled their goal.”
Archie mentioned his displeasure in the way his side used the ball. He felt his team were slack in possession and lacked a cutting edge which East Fife found after the interval.
“We were really poor with the ball and when you play a team from the league below, you need to use the ball well. You want that quality to shine through but it simply didn’t. We gave them the ball far too easily and that only encouraged them. Also, when we got into the attacking third, we were far too negative and that meant East Fife were comfortable. We should have made it a much tougher end to the game than we did.”
The gaffer finished by praising the hosts, East Fife, who fought for everything and in his eyes, deserved the victory they got.
“We were very poor but you do have to give East Fife credit. Lots of lower league teams might crumble after falling one behind but they stuck to their task and fought their way back into things. They had greater desire and looked like they wanted it more so we can’t complain about losing this one.”
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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.
