Thursday 2nd March, 2017 at 1:30am
After watching his side take three points away from Dens Park following a really gritty display in a 1-0 win, Alan Archibald took the time to speak to ptfc.co.uk about his side’s superb win.
“Dens wasn’t a happy hunting ground for us for a number of seasons but we seem to have turned that around this term. It was a great result for us today though and we’re very proud of the performance to go along with it.
“I think it goes down as pretty much the perfect away performance. Every time we turned over possession Chris Erskine was finding a bit of space and he linked up very well with Kris Doolan – especially in the first half. We always looked a threat and created some great openings.”
Thistle grabbed the vital goal on half an hour after a Doolan ball was directed into the Dundee net by centre back, Etxabeguren. It would prove decisive but the Jags had plenty to do before the full time whistle.
“Obviously once we go the goal there was a lot of defending to do but the back three did that ever so well and handled being put under a lot of pressure. That’s four clean sheets on the spin now and every time we pick a team it’s tough to leave people out. We have a great squad though and everyone is pushing to be involved all the time.
“The three centre backs were outstanding today but we defended as a team throughout the 90 minutes. The two sitting midfielders in front of them worked well and it was a very resilient display from the entire unit.”
The result sees Thistle move into the top six but in such a tight league Archie knows nothing can be taken for granted.
“I think if we can keep our place in the top six for a few weeks now we can start building a bit of a gap between us and those below us but for now we’ll just take it one game at a time. This will be the first time we’ve managed to stay in the top six for longer than 20 or so hours so it gives us something to build on and we go into a tough cup tie absolutely full of confidence.
“We now aim to take our league form into the cup against Aberdeen. Everyone knows how good they are and it will certainly be tough but we’ll go into it in great form and with a very positive attitude. We’ll need to be at our very best but we have done OK up there and we just need to give it everything we can. We trust our players in the roles we ask them to do and that is a great position for any management team to be in.”
A more in depth video interview with Alan Archibald is available now to Jagzone subscribers and will be followed by reaction from Chris Erskine and Ryan Edwards. Log in now to see it as soon as it is available.
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Article Copyright © 2017. Permission to use quotations from this article online is only granted subject to appropriate source credit and hyperlink to www.ptfc.co.uk
