Friday 16th August, 2013 at 2:03pm
A Thistle victory this evening would, at least for a few hours, take us to the top of the newly formed Scottish Premiership. Not since August 1980, when Thistle opened the Premier League season with a 3-2 win over, coincidently enough, Hearts have Thistle stood proudly at the top of Scotland’s top league.
That would be a nice, if possibly short-lived, landmark to reach but of much greater importance than early league tables is the prospect of continuing a good start to the season with 3 points against a Hearts side that started the season with a 15 point deduction.
Just two games into the season, however, and their young side; rivalled perhaps only by ourselves in that respect, have already made inroads into their penalty imposed points deficit. A narrow 1-0 win over Hibs in last weekend’s Edinburgh derby will have filled Gary Locke’s side full of confidence for this evening’s encounter. A tough fixture between two young, talented teams is very much in prospect then.
Manager Alan Archibald took in Hearts game with Hibs last Sunday and he knows just how tough a game tonight’s will be.
“There is a great team spirit at Hearts and I think that they showed that last week in the Edinburgh derby. There may be wasn’t an awful lot of quality on show in the game but I think it was the team that wanted to win the match the most did so.”
Alan continued;
“Hearts are a young side, similar to ourselves, and they have a great hunger and desire. You find that when a team has a cause to fight for and we know that tonight’s game is going to be an extremely difficult one.”
Just as Hearts go into tonight’s game on the back of a confidence boosting result and performance last week so too do Thsitle who, of course, enjoyed an excellent 3-1 win at Ross County.
Said Alan;
“It was an excellent performance last week but the players know that they need to try and live up to the standards that they set in that match although we know that it isn’t possible to play that well every week.”
The only real selection headache that the manager has ahead of tonight’s game centres on who to leave out.
“Jordan McMillan is the only player missing through injury”, said Alan before continuing;
“Stuart Bannigan played 80 minutes of the Scotland under 21 game with England on Tuesday night and he came through that okay. It can’t have been nice being part of a team that lost 6-0 but he was up against experienced players in the English Premiership and I’m sure he would have enjoyed being part of that and more importantly will have learned from the experience.”
Alan went on;
“I’ve a really good squad at the moment with the players not playing really pushing the players that are hard for their place. It’s understandable that those that aren’t picked are disappointed but as I’ve said to them; they will all get their chance at some stage. I think they’ve bought into that. I think you could see that at Ross County last Saturday when the substitutes were celebrating just as hard as those on the pitch were doing.”
Partick Thistle Stats
The Season So Far
W D L F A
2 1 0 5 2
Scorers Season 2013-2014
Steven Lawless 2
Conrad Balatoni 1
Kris Doolan 1
Stephen O’Donnell 1
Hearts Stats
The Season So Far
W D L F A
1 0 1 1 1
Scorer Season 2013-2014
Callum Paterson 1
Last Meeting
Scottish Cup Quarter-Final
Saturday February 25th 2006
Hearts 2, Partick Thistle 1
Teams
Hearts: Gordon, Neilson, Fyssas, Pressley, Hartley, Webster, Cesnauskis, Brellier, Jankauskas, Elliot, Skacel subs Berra, Bednar, Mikoliunas.
Thistle: Arthur, Murray, B Gibson, Smyth, Hodge, J Gibson, Boyd, Strachan, Ritchie, McConalogue, Roberts subs Brady, Gillies.
Scorers
Hearts: Jankauskas (6), Cesnauskas (63)
Thistle: Roberts (75)
Crowd: 16,698
Match Details
Scottish Premiership
Friday August 16th 2013
Partick Thistle v Heart of Midlothian
Kick-off: 7:45pm
Prices
Jackie Husband Stand
Adults £20
Concessions (Over 65, Students, Unemployed, Disabled + Carer) £14
Under 16s FREE
Arrangements for Season Ticket Collection
North Stand (over 16s only)
Adults £20
Concessions £14 (Over 65, Students, Unemployed, Disabled + Carer)
Main Stand (Away Support)
Adults £20
Concessions (Over 65s, Students, Disabled + Carer) £14
Under 16s £5.
PLEASE NOTE FIXTURE IS ALL TICKET FOR HEARTS FANS
Programme £3
Match Officials
Referee: Bobby Madden
Assistant Referees: Alasdair Ross and Stuart Stevenson
Fourth Official: Steven McLean
