Saturday 24th August, 2019 at 1:11am
A second half collapse saw Greenock Morton keep all three points at Cappielow this evening as Partick Thistle let a two-goal lead slip in the second half of their third Championship game of the season. Goals from Kenny Miller and Raffa De Vita had put the Jags in a great position with less than 20 minutes to play but three goals in eight minutes turned the result on its head as Nicky Cadden, John Sutton and Brian McLean got on the scoresheet late on. Thistle manager, Gary Caldwell, spoke to ptfc.co.uk after the game.
“We were given a two-goal lead and we’ve let it slip. We weren’t great in the first half yet we have that lead at half-time and I told the players that we need to step it up or we could still easily lose the game, but they didn’t heed that warning.
“We didn’t have enough bravery in possession and we didn’t deal with John Sutton at all and for any single player to have as much impact as he did is not acceptable. There were a few home truths said in the changing room because we all know that the performance wasn’t good enough.”
The gaffer expanded on the point about not really deserving the advantage that the Maryhill men held going into the interval.
“I didn’t think we were really on top at any point. We didn’t put our foot on the ball or try to pass it enough and we got two goals from their poor defending more than anything. As I’ve said, we told them at half-time that we hadn’t played all that well in the opening 45 and that Morton were very much still in the game.”
Caldwell stressed the importance of playing football in tough moments rather than resorting to panicked clearances and long balls when under a bit of pressure.
“It’s key to the way we want to play and it was missing tonight. We’re not asking them to play risky football but we do want them to show that bravery on the ball and pass it about in the middle of the pitch. Keep possession in their half and put them under some real pressure but we could barely string two passes together in their half after half-time and that’s the frustrating thing for me.”
The squad were hoping to back up the win over Ross County in the Betfred Cup with a league win but after failing to do so, the manager said that the team need to start getting results sooner rather than later.
“We’ve let the fans down with that performance. We build up the expectations with that great win against County last week but we need to start backing that up with a run of games and that means four, five, six games where we are on the front foot, playing aggressive football and winning games.”
A more in depth video interview with Gary Caldwell is available to Jagzone subscribers now and reaction from Raffa De Vita and Cammy Palmer will be online shortly.
Highlights will also be available to view later and will be free for Jagzone subscribers.
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Article Copyright © 2019. Permission to use quotations from this article online is only granted subject to appropriate source credit and hyperlink to ptfc.co.uk
