Friday 16th November, 2018 at 5:30pm
The preparations are almost complete ahead of another important Ladbrokes Championship fixture tomorrow afternoon against Falkirk. After the squad’s final training session of the week manager Gary Caldwell spoke to ptfc.co.uk.
After a positive performance against Inverness Caledonian Thistle last weekend, the Jags gaffer knows his side must start turning performances into points.
“We’ve progressed in terms of performance over the course of the last month but we have to turn that into points. We’ve been working extremely hard this week ahead of the game against Falkirk and I want my players to show their character on the pitch.
“We know that we have to turn these performances into points and there is no better time to start that than on Saturday”
Thistle showed a lot of attacking intent during last weekend’s game and Gary was pleased to see his side play with hunger
“I want us to be on the front foot during the game. We did that really well last week in the first half and it was just the final piece that was letting us down last Saturday. We need to show a little bit more composure in and around the box.
“The players put a lot of energy into last weekend’s game so we gave them Monday off and we’ve built the intensity and tempo of training up gradually over the course of the four days leading up to the match. We’ve also been working on fitness and getting the players to be the fittest I’ve seen them since I’ve come to the Club.”
There has been a change to the backroom staff around the Energy Check Stadium at Firhill with sports scientist Junior Mendes moving on to St Mirren. Carlos Valenzuela will step up to become the Club’s lead sports scientist
“Junior has moved on to St Mirren and he goes with our best wishes. I knew him from playing against him but I hadn’t worked with him until I arrived at the Club. He was very professional and great at what he did but he wanted to move on. We’ve got Carlos Valenzuela ready to step in and he’s been excellent. He’s changed a couple of things to freshen it up and the players have reacted to that really well.
Finally, we caught up with team news ahead of tomorrow’s match.
“We’ve cleared up a lot of our short term injuries so we have a fully fit squad to head to Falkirk. Aidan Fitzpatrick and Andrew McCarthy both picked up little knocks during Monday’s reserve match against Hearts but they’ve come back into training later in the week. The only player who will definitely miss out is Max Melbourne who is suspended after his red card on Monday afternoon.”
More exclusive preview interviews with Kris Doolan, Blair Spittal and Jags gaffer, Gary Caldwell, are available to Jagzone subscribers – log in now to see them.
Jagzone members will also be able to watch extended highlights of the game.
Can’t make it to the Falkirk Stadium? Jagzone members can listen to live audio commentary of the match. JagZoneLIVE begins at 2:45pm on Saturday.
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