Saturday 12th September, 2015 at 2:19pm
Thistle return to action tomorrow to take on Dundee in another Ladbrokes Premiership match. Ptfc.co.uk caught up with Alan Archibald to find out how the international break went.
“It’s a good break to have as it lets the players recharge the batteries a little and allows the injuries to clear up a little. It’s frustrating to have it when we’re on back to back defeats, but there is nothing we can do about the timing of it.
“The players were down in the first couple of days of training, which is normal given they lost the last league game, but they soon perked up again and have been back to their usual selves in training. We gave the players a couple of days off, which we always do, to give them a bit of a break and a chance for the English lads to go back down south and see family. You get a different reaction from it, each time you do it but everything is now geared towards Dundee on Saturday.”
Thistle’s fixtures with Dundee were close affairs with two stoppage time goals for the Dens Park side, denying Thistle on a couple of occasions.
“The games against Dundee last season were strange in that we had a lot of the play, but we didn’t win any of the three games. Paul’s sides always have a never say die fighting spirit about them and that was proven by the way they scored late goals in two of the three games against us last season. We’re aware of the threat they pose, but equally they have weaknesses and we’ll be looking to exploit them on Saturday.”
Thistle have had a tough start to the season but Alan Archibald is confident it won’t affect his players.
“We’re used to having hype about not having done this or that, as we’ve had it in the last two seasons, firstly with the lack of a home win in 2013/14 and latterly the absence of consecutive wins last season, so it’s something we’re very used to.
“We’ve had a tough start where things haven’t quite went for us. A couple of games we haven’t been at our best and we need to make sure that they are the exception rather than the rule. We now go into five winnable games and we’re looking to push on and move up the table”
It’s almost a full squad for Alan Archibald to pick for ahead of tomorrow’s game.
“Christie is, obviously, still unavailable and Mathias Pogba is still feeling his hamstring but we’ll give him every opportunity to take to the pitch.”
