Saturday 11th January, 2014 at 2:35pm
All games are important over the course of a season but equally there can be no denying that we are entering what looks to be an incredibly important stage of the season. Tomorrow’s fixture with RossCounty, the side immediately below us in the league table, is the first of three in a row at home.
Manager Alan Archibald when speaking to [link:HOME] was hoping that the victory over Hearts last weekend will help instil some extra confidence in the players.
“People talk about us winning ugly against Hearts but I prefer to think of it as doing what you have to do to win a game. We’ve not been in the position to grind out a win too often this season and I was delighted that players showed that they are capable of doing that at Tynecastle. In any case I thought we played very well in the first half and we played the game at a good tempo. I felt that we deserved our two goal lead at the break. That’s a position that we haven’t been in often this season and in a way the players didn’t know whether to stick and twist in the second half and they got bogged down a little. They are young and they are learning all the time. Hopefully they will have learned from that experience.”
Alan went on;
“You can’t always play good passing football and you do need to grind out a result from time to time. Ideally you want to combine the ability to play good football with the ability the work hard and battle for a win.”
The manager has a few selection headaches ahead of tomorrow’s game.
“Stuart Bannigan is suspended which is obviously a blow. Isaac Osbourne had his operation yesterday and it looks as if he will be out long term; his season is possible over. Sean Welsh is still out and while Aaron Muirhead did train today I would rate him as no more than 50/50 to play tomorrow.”
Partick Thistle Stats
Current Form – Last Five Games
W D L F A
1 1 3 4 8
Scorers Season 2013-2014
Kris Doolan 7
Steven Lawless 4
Aaron Muirhead 4
Christie Elliott 2
Conrad Balatoni 1
Ross Forbes 1
Kallum Higginbotham 1
Stephen O’Donnell 1
Lyle Taylor 1
Aaron Taylor-Sinclair 1
Last Game
Scottish Premiership
Sunday January 5th 2014
Hearts 0, Partick Thistle 2
Ross County Stats
Current Form – Last Five Games
W D L F A
2 0 3 3 5
Scorers Season 2013-2014
Richard Brittain 4
Melvin De Leeuw 4
Graham Carey 3
Stuart Kettlewell 2
Rocco Quinn 2
Ivan Sproule 2
Scott Boyd 1
Alex Cooper 1
Darren Maatsen 1
Orhan Mustafi 1
Steve Saunders 1
Last Game
Scottish Premiership
Saturday January 4th 2014
RossCounty 1, St Johnstone 0
Last Meeting
Scottish Premiership
Saturday August 10th 2013
RossCounty 1, Partick Thistle 3
Teams
RossCounty: Brown, Kovacevic, Gordon, Kettlewell, Micic (De Leeuw), Mustafi (Glen), Quinn, Munro, Maatsen (Ross), McLean, Carey.
Partick Thistle: Fox, O’Donnell, Taylor-Sinclair, Welsh, Balatoni, Muirhead, Craigen, Bannigan (Higginbotham), Doolan (Baird), Lawless, Fraser.
Scorers
County: Carey (71)
Thistle: Doolan (18), Lawless (53, 59)
Crowd: 3,331
Match Details
Scottish Premiership
Saturday January 11th 2014
Partick Thistle v RossCounty
Kick-off: 3:00pm
Admission Details
Programme £3
Match Officials
Referee: Bobby Madden
Assistant Referees: David McGeachie and Joseph Lawson
Fourth Official: John McKendrick
Other Premiership Fixtures
Hearts v Motherwell
Inverness Caledonian Thistle v Dundee United (Sunday)
St Johnstone v St Mirren
