Saturday 4th March, 2017 at 12:46pm
After a very satisfying win on Wednesday night there is certainly a confidence around the FIrhill camp at the moment and it was clear when the Jags boss, Alan Archibald, spoke to ptfc.co.uk yesterday that the side would be going into Sunday’s William Hill Scottish Cup quarter final with a very positive mindset.
Archie began his preview by talking about just how much a semi final place would mean to everyone at the club.
“We’ve been away from it for a long time and we’re very envious of the teams like St Johnstone and Inverness who have done it recently. We had a small taste of it with the Ramsdens Cup final and took good numbers to that so we’d love to get a trip to Hampden this year.
“A big part of it is about rewarding the fans as well. They have been great with us since we took over and it is kind of the natural progression for us to do better in the cup competitions. We would certainly love to be able to give them a great day out and there is no reason why it can’t be Partick Thistle this time around.”
Thistle’s form has been excellent in recent weeks with four wins and four clean sheets in a row across all competitions.
“I’m delighted that we’re going into it in this kind of form. The players know we are in a good position in the league and we can go into Sunday and throw everything at it. That’s the plan – we’ll go into it and have a real go. We haven’t won up there this season and we’ve only won once against them here in the last few years so we know it will be a tough game.
“The recent matches have been tight contests though so it isn’t like we haven’t been competitive with them. It has taken a set play for them to break us down each time and open the scoring so we can go into it with plenty of confidence.
“We don’t want to read too much into the Accies result on Tuesday night because I thought Aberdeen were very good there. It’s probably the best I’ve seen them play this season – I thought they were very very good. We need to be ready for the backlash.
“We know that when you play up at Pittodrie it’s always going to be tough but if we can ride out the first 10 minutes and frustrate their support then we have a chance. We’ve got a consistent team now and we trust the players to go out and do the jobs we’re asking of them.
“There’s no getting away from the fact it will be a tough tie but we’ve been scoring at the right time and keeping clean sheets so, from our point of view, there won’t be a better time to go up there and take the game to them.”
Finally Archibald touched on the status of his squad in terms of injuries.
“Other than the long term ones we’re pretty much at full strength so you couldn’t really ask for any more.”
A more in depth video interview with Alan Archibald is now available to Jagzone subscribers. Log in now to see it. Jagzone members will also be able to watch highlights of the game from midnight on Sunday and will be able to listen to live audio commentary from Pittodrie.
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