Friday 10th January, 2020 at 4:58pm
Partick Thistle play their first home game of 2020 as they welcome Dundee United to Maryhill this weekend. The table-topping Tangerines have beaten the Jags twice already this season by the odd goal but Thistle will be hoping to cause an upset and continue their push to get away from the Championship’s bottom two spots. Thistle manager, Ian McCall, spoke to ptfc.co.uk to preview the match:
“I think if you look at the form table, we’re second but, to be honest, that’s not a table I take too much notice of because of where we are in the real table. It should be a good game though with two of the league’s form sides. We’ll have a noisy home support and I’m sure they’ll bring a few along too so I’m looking forward to it.”
In the two meetings between these sides so far this term there’s only been one goal in the game and Ian feels he’s seen enough in those games to be confident that his side can produce a result against United this week.
“I was at the first game as a spectator, the 2-1 game, and I thought Thistle played really well that night and then at Tannadice, I didn’t feel we deserved to be beaten, and Robbie Neilson agreed with me so we have that belief but we know we just need to get points so hopefully we can get the result to go with the performance this time round.”
McCall’s side have only lost twice in their last eight league games, a run which has helped them move closer to the pack of teams above them and the gaffer highlighted the importance of putting runs like that together in the Championship.
“The nature of the league is that we’re only seven points off fourth place and you saw Dunfermline win three or four games and shoot up into the play-offs. Now, we’re coming from a bit further back but if we can carry on the way we’ve been playing recently winning three out of five games then that’ll see us get into the top four.
“It’s not easy in this league though, keeping that form up. A good run in this league is winning three or four and as I’ve said that can really push you up the league. For us, we’ve not shot up the league recently but we are now right on the coattails of a few teams and are in a good position to hopefully push on.”
The manager is keen to strengthen both his squad and his starting line-up in January but says that it can be difficult to find the right players in the January market.
“Every manager will tell you it’s difficult to work in the January window. The loan market can be quite useful in that regard but I’d like to think we’ll be able to get two or three on longer term contracts who we want to be here so that at the start of next season we have a base of 13 or 14 players rather than seven or eight.”
More exclusive preview interviews with Joe Cardle and Thistle assistant manager, Neil Scally, are now available to JagZone subscribers – log in to see them.
Jagzone members will also be able to watch extended highlights of the game.
Can’t make it to the match? JagzoneLIVE will bring you coverage of the full 90 minutes through our audio commentary service which begins begins at 2:45pm – you can listen in here.
For a full list of all the great content you can access from just £5.99 per month as a Jagzone member, click here.
Article Copyright © 2020. Permission to use quotations from this article online is only granted subject to appropriate source credit and hyperlink to ptfc.co.uk.
