Friday 27th January, 2017 at 9:05am
It has been a tough week of training ahead of the much awaited return to Ladbrokes Premiership action for the Jags, but there certainly hasn’t been any rest for manager, Alan Archibald. With Niall Keown signing for the club on loan from Reading Archie was glad to be able to welcome the young defender ahead of the trip north to play Inverness on Saturday.
“It’s great to get everything sorted with Niall but it doesn’t really feel like a new signing to be honest. Reading were great to deal with and they let us take him away to Spain with us, then he trained here last week so he has had a bit of time to settle in to the club already.
“It was the perfect situation really because it let us get a proper look at him and allowed him to learn a bit more about us so both parties knew exactly what they were getting in to. He settled in really well though so hopefully there won’t be any issues when it comes to matches. He’ll be in the squad for Saturday and with a couple of suspensions – Devine and Osman – he could well be in contention but, as I say, we have no worries about playing him.”
As one defender arrived at the club another departed with Ziggy Gordon leaving to join Jagiellonia Bialystok.
“Ziggy was a great professional for us but found it a bit frustrating when he wasn’t playing as much as he would have liked before the winter break. He’s a great pro and wanted to go play games which is why the move happened.”
With almost a month having passed since Thistle were last in league action it’s fair to say everyone at the club is ready to get back to it.
“We’re certainly on a good run and I think the break came at the right time for us. We were able to get a few of the injured boys a rest and hopefully they’ll be back stronger having had a bit of time away from games.
“We’re confident coming in to the game on Saturday and we’ll certainly be looking to continue the good run of form that we’re on. We’ve got three tough games coming up but we’ve done it before and we know we need the same kind of resolute performances again this time round to get a similar number of points out of these matches.
“If we take points out of these three games then we have a great chance of pushing for top six which is obviously a massive incentive for everyone involved with the club. It’s still very tight though and everyone still has to play everyone so we certainly won’t be taking any chances.”
There was a welcome return for Mustapha Dumbuya in the game against Formartine and Archibald is happy to have an almost fully fit squad to choose from.
“As I say we have the couple of suspensions but other than that it’s really just the three long term ones – Stuart Bannigan, Ryan Scully and Gary Fraser. Mustapha got 45 minutes last week but we’ll be sure not to rush him or put too much pressure on him as he is back quicker than we thought. Liam Lindsay has recovered from the operation he had on his nose.”
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