Thursday 31st December, 2020 at 5:37pm
Partick Thistle look to start off 2021 with a win as they welcome Clyde to Firhill in league action for the first time since 2009 this weekend. The Jags ended last year with a 0-0 draw at the Falkirk Stadium while Clyde suffered a 4-2 defeat at the hands of Airdrieonians last time out. Thistle assistant manager Neil Scally spoke to ptfc.co.uk ahead of the fixture:
“We’re looking forward to this one and want to get off to a good start for the new year. We didn’t play anywhere near our best the last time we played Clyde and they were deserving winners so we’re keen to put that right and get all three points this time round.”
The Maryhill men suffered their first home defeat of the competitive season in their last Firhill game against Peterhead but Scally says the team are looking forward to a return home this weekend.
“Against Peterhead we were nowhere near good enough which was particularly disappointing because I felt like we’d looked good at home early in the season. Now, if you include the Dumbarton game we haven’t scored in our last two home games so we’re desperate to put that right against Clyde.
“I think the promising thing for us was that we bounced back from that Peterhead loss with a good performance away at Falkirk where we should definitely have had two goals late in that first half and looked well on top in the second half before the red card.”
Reflecting further on the Falkirk stalemate, Neil gave plaudits to the players who worked tirelessly to add another clean sheet to their total despite being a man down for more than 25 minutes.
“They were brilliant in that last half hour or so. Falkirk barely had a shot on goal in that entire second half and towards the end of the game we were relatively comfortable. We even looked dangerous on the counter on a couple of occasions so the guys deserve a lot of credit for what they put into that game.”
Young attacker Dean Watson was recalled from his loan at East Stirlingshire this week to bolster the Thistle squad ahead of the Bully Wee’s visit and Scally says the 18-year-old has the attributes to contribute to the team immediately.
“Dean is a very talented boy and has shown a lot of promise in training. He’s one of a group of younger players who we’ve had training with the first team and I think they’ve all looked at home to be honest. For Dean in particular, he can play through the middle or out wide and is a very direct kind of player who’s not afraid to try things and that’s a great asset to have.”
Neil ended by giving us the latest team news ahead of this week’s game.
“Ross Docherty came off with an injury at Falkirk and he’ll have to go for a scan so we’ll see what that says. Brian Graham has been going through all the protocols with the medical team after his head knock and is making progress but obviously you have to be very careful with that type of injury.
“Blair Spittal has been back in doing full session’s for over a week now and that’s been great to see. He’s one who’ll definitely come back into contention this weekend and that’s really pleasing because he’s the type of player who can get you that match-winning moment that we’ve been missing a bit recently.”
More exclusive preview interviews with Thistle assistant manager Neil Scally and Ciaran McKenna are now available for JagZone subscribers to watch – log in to view.
We’re streaming our clash with Clyde on Saturday afternoon. A pay-per-view pass costs just £10 for this match. Click here to purchase your pay-per-view pass.
We’ll also have extended highlights and a full game replay of the match on JagZone this Saturday evening.
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