Saturday 16th December, 2017 at 7:48pm
Partick Thistle looked to build on a midweek victory over Motherwell with a trip to Dens Park to face fellow strugglers Dundee. Thistle had the chance to secure back-to-back league wins for the first time this season and knew that a win would take them off the foot of the league table and above this afternoon’s opponents. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be for the Jags as they were defeated 3-0 by Neil McCann’s Dark Blues. Two penalty goals from Sofien Moussa on either side of a Mark O’Hara strike saw the hosts take the three points to move further clear of bottom placed Thistle. Jags boss, Alan Archibald spoke to ptfc.co.uk following the match.
Archie started by expressing his disappointment in his side’s inability to really take the game to Dundee at any stage of the match.
“We never really got on the front foot. Our start was poor and I think maybe some of the boys just presumed we’d start well as we did in midweek but it doesn’t work like that in football. You’ve got to work hard and win the individual battles which we struggled with today.”
With the incentive of getting off the bottom of the table there for the Jags, Alan was surprised that his side didn’t show more during the 90 minutes.
“We’ve told the boys over and over again that if we don’t start winning more consistently, especially in games against teams around us, then we’ll be cut adrift. In these games, we often have a fair bit of the ball but we don’t look incisive in possession and we look vulnerable without it which is obviously a dreadful combination. At the moment, a lot of the goals we are conceding are just silly individual mistakes that you can’t legislate for and we have to cut those errors out of our game.”
The gaffer also discussed the formational change that he made very early in the match as his side switched from a 5-3-2 to a 4-2-3-1 in the first half.
“I felt we needed to change. We were struggling with the long ball to the striker and the spare runners through the middle. It gave us a bit more solidity and support out wide but left us open to the counter which cost us for the second goal.”
Alan Archibald and his players now look ahead to a tough trip to Celtic Park on Wednesday night as the Jags look to take something from the treble-winning Celts. Kick-off is 19:45 at Parkhead.
A more in depth video interview with Alan Archibald is available now to Jagzone subscribers and will be followed by reaction from Adam Barton. Log in now to see it as soon as it is available.
New Jagzone subscribers can get their first month absolutely FREE. Click here to find out more
Jagzone subscribers can rewatch the full 90 minutes soon.
Highlights will be added shortly and will be free for Jagzone subscribers.
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 © 2017. Permission to use quotations from this article online is only granted subject to appropriate source credit and hyperlink to ptfc.co.uk.
