Friday 17th August, 2018 at 4:59pm
Having secured their first league win of the season this past Saturday against Falkirk, Partick Thistle continued their success with Irn-Bru Cup progression against Stranraer on Tuesday night. However, before they return to Championship action, the Jags must prepare for their third competition in the past seven days as they take on Celtic in the Betfred Cup. The Bhoys will travel to Maryhill looking to deny Thistle back-to-back quarter-finals in the Betfred Cup as the current holders. Jags manager, Alan Archibald spoke to ptfc.co.uk ahead of a tough cup tie.
Alan began by highlighting the importance of a quick start against a Celtic side who have lost their last two games and as such will be keen to right a few wrongs.
“The opening minutes will be crucial no matter what. There are two ways that they could play early on. They could come out low on confidence because of the last two results or they might come out flying, hungry to win. If it’s low on confidence then we’ll need to be ready to take advantage before they can build any momentum but if they start quickly then we’ll need to be on top of our game defensively.”
Following on from Tuesday’s 5-0 success against Stranraer, the gaffer knows it’ll be a completely different game against the Parkhead side.
“I said that straight after the game at Stair Park. We won’t have as much of the ball which means we need to be very efficient when we do have it. We’ve got quite a few guys who haven’t played against Celtic before but the others have told them what it’s like from a player’s point of view and, hopefully, they’ll be able to handle the occasion.”
Archie hopes his team can play with a bit of confidence coming off the back of two straight wins and take the game to Celtic who have been shown to be beatable.
“The lads showed great character to bounce back last Saturday and they were playing with a swagger at times. That continued into Tuesday’s game and hopefully will also carry through to Saturday. You always want your attacking players to look for the ball and that’s been the case the past few games. You can see the guys have that self-belief to try a shot or take on a man and we’ll need self-belief in spades if we’re going to get near Celtic.”
The manager touched on the potential importance of set pieces with Tam O’Ware getting off the mark as a Jag during the week and Sean McGinty always a threat, Archie hopes his side can take advantage of opportunities to deliver into the danger area.
“Set pieces can be a massive part of any game. We saw the wrong side of that too often last season because we were conceding too many and rarely scored from them. This year, I feel we have a greater threat and we need to capitalise in any chance we have to get the ball into the box. Whenever we come up against lower league teams, set pieces can be a leveller so hopefully they can play a similar role in this game.”
More exclusive preview interviews with James Penrice and Jags gaffer, Alan Archibald, 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 The Energy Check Stadium at Firhill? Jagzone members can listen to live audio commentary of the match. JagZoneLIVE begins at 12:15pm on Saturday afternoon.
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 © 2018. Permission to use quotations from this article online is only granted subject to appropriate source credit and hyperlink to ptfc.co.uk.
