Saturday 14th December, 2013 at 2:28pm
There was much to be encouraged about in our display last weekend against Hibs; Thistle only denied a win by a goal scored deep into injury time.
Tomorrow afternoon we are back in action at Firhill with the visit of St Johnstone just the first game in a period that manager Alan Archibald sees as being vital for our season.
“We’re coming into a really important spell. In the next two months or so we are basically playing all the sides around us in the league table. The football comes fast and furious at this time of the year and it would be good to go into this run of games with as many people fit and available as possible.”
A couple of players did pick up knocks against Hibs last weekend and the manager was able to give us an update on the injury situation.
“Both Stephen O’Donnell and Sean Welsh are definitely out for tomorrow’s game. It’s going to be a late decision on Steven Lawless and Kallum Higginbotham who picked up knocks against Hibs. Both trained today but we will need to see how they react to that before making a final decision on whether they can be involved tomorrow.”
Alan continued;
“On the plus side both Stuart Bannigan and Conrad Balatoni are free from suspension although Gary Fraser remains suspended. Last week we were four or five bodies down but I was very pleased with the performance we produced at Easter Road. That coupled with players coming back gives me the kind of headache you want as a manager. It’s important that we have competition for places.”
Earlier this season Thistle drew 1-1 with St Johnstone in Perth and Alan is naturally hoping to improve upon that result tomorrow when they come down to Glasgow.
“We more than matched St Johnstone when we played them at McDiarmidPark. They are an established top flight side with experienced players throughout their team. The only player in their side that we played in September who didn’t really have much top league experience was Stevie May and he has been in excellent form this season. We managed to keep him pretty quiet in Perth and hopefully we will be able to do exactly the same tomorrow.”
Partick Thistle Stats
Current Form – Last Five Games
W D L F A
0 1 4 2 13
Scorers Season 2013-2014
Kris Doolan 6
Aaron Muirhead 4
Steven Lawless 3
Christie Elliott 2
Conrad Balatoni 1
Ross Forbes 1
Kallum Higginbotham 1
Stephen O’Donnell 1
Last Game
Scottish Premiership
Saturday December 7th 2013
Partick Thistle 1, Hibs 1
St Johnstone Stats
Current Form – Last Five Games
W D L F A
3 0 2 7 4
Scores Season 2013-2014
Stevie May 13
Nigel Hasselbaink 5
Steven MacLean 4
David Wotherspoon 2
Liam Caddis 1
Gwion Edwards 1
Rory Fallon 1
Sanel Jahic 1
Gary McDonald 1
David Mackay 1
Frazer Wright 1
Last Game
Scottish Premiership
Saturday December 7th 2013
St Johnstone 0, Aberdeen 2
Last Meeting
Scottish Premiership
Saturday September 28th 2013
St Johnstone 1, Partick Thistle 1
Teams
St Johnstone: Mannus, MacKay, Cregg (Caddis), Wright, Anderson (Miller), Millar, MacLean, Wotherspoon (Hasselbaink), May, Davidson, Easton.
Thistle: Gallacher, O’Donnell, Taylor-Sinclair, Welsh, Balatoni, Muirhead, Bannigan, Doolan, Elliott, Osbourne, Higginbotham (Craigen).
Scorers
St Johnstone: MacLean (42)
Thistle: Doolan (6)
Crowd: 3,248
Match Details
Scottish Premiership
Saturday December 14th 2013
Partick Thistle v St Johnstone
Kick-off: 3:00pm
Admission Details
Match Officials
Referee: Kevin Clancy
Assistant Referees: Francis Andrews and Ross Haswell
Fourth Official: Alan Muir
Other Fixtures
Scottish Premiership
Aberdeen v St Mirren
Celtic v Hibernian
Hearts v Inverness Caledonian Thistle
Kilmarnock v Dundee United
RossCounty v Motherwell
