Sunday 23rd November, 2014 at 6:58pm
[link:HOME] spoke with manager Alan Archibald after this afternoon’s match and he offered this assessment of a game that is unlikely to live long in the memory.
“It wasn’t a great game of football and there wasn’t too much in the game although there was plenty of effort and endeavour.”
Alan went on;
“The penalty obviously changed the first half. It’s a hard one for Paul Gallacher as the rules change all the time but he can’t make up his mind to move or not until Goodwillie decides what he is going to do and Goodwillie does make a slight movement, ducking out of the way of the ball at the last minute. Whether it was the right call or not to award a corner we should still have defended the corner better than we did.”
And Alan’s verdict on the handball itself?
“I think it is a handball. I think Mark Reynolds makes a move on Abdul and his hand is high and it hits his hand.”
Once a goal ahead Aberdeen were always going to make it extremely difficult for Thistle to find a way back into the match.
Said Alan;
“They are a very resolute side and they defend very well. Once they got that lead they were always going to be hard to break down. In saying that in the second half I thought that we made a couple of chances albeit we didn’t work the goalkeeper. We really need to hit the target in those situations.”
Thistle did have one excellent chance in the first at 0-0 which had they taken may have changed the pattern of the game.
“I thought we had a couple of chances in the first half with James’ chance one of them. He should have done better and he knows that himself.”
A major plus point for the manager was another good defensive display despite a late change in goal.
“I know that Aberdeen had a few players missing this afternoon but they still had a very threatening front line and I thought that we defended really well and we only gave them a few sights of goal with Paul Gallacher, who only came in late after a late call off from Scott Fox who is unwell, had a good save as well. All in all I was delighted with the back four who have been good of late.”
When did the manager become aware that Scott Fox wouldn’t be able to play?
“It was about 11:15 this morning that we found out that Scott had woken up unwell with a touch of food poisoning. It shows great professionalism that Paul was able to step into the team at such short notice. I’ve said all along that I don’t have any worry about my goalkeepers. I have two very good goalkeeper who I can call upon at any time.”
