Saturday 26th August, 2017 at 7:23pm
After three straight league defeats to open the Ladbrokes Premiership, Partick Thistle took on Aberdeen as they looked for their first points of the new campaign. It wasn’t to be for the Firhill side as Aberdeen struck in the 84th minute through Adam Rooney to steal a 4-3 win. A better attacking performance was overshadowed by a slack defensive showing that saw the side concede four as well as seeing Niall Keown sent off. Thistle boss, Alan Archibald, spoke to ptfc.co.uk after the game to give his thoughts on the match.
The game was one of excitement and intrigue as the momentum swung from one side to the other a number of times during the match but for Archie the quality of the game just made it more disappointing when his side let in the all-important fourth goal.
“For the neutral, I’ve no doubt that it was a great game to watch but as a manager I watch it and see too much bad defending from our side. That was the most frustrating part of it. Maybe the fact that we haven’t got any points yet plays into it in that we possibly sit-off them a bit too much and drop deeper late on but we can’t let that happen.”
Although his side struggled to deal with Aberdeen’s attack at times today, the gaffer was pleased with his frontline who netted three today having scored just once in their previous three league matches.
“We were a threat all day. We’ve worked on set plays and it paid off today. Also, we responded brilliantly to falling behind early when we could have fallen apart so there’s still plenty of positivity among our group. We caused them massive problems but with no points for it, we still need to improve.”
In the dying moments of the game, one of Thistle’s goal scorers, Niall Keown, was sent off for a second bookable offence and Archie feels it may have been slightly harsh on the defender.
“I think he’s a bit unfortunate. Not long before his sending off, an Aberdeen player committed a similar foul and got away without a yellow so there’s a bit of consistency lacking there but we have to deal with that.”
Chris Erskine netted his 50th Thistle goal today and Kris Doolan got off the mark for the new league season. Alan said that he was happy to see them back on the scoresheet.
“They were a handful for Aberdeen at times and it’s good to see them among the goals. I didn’t realise it was Chris’ 50th.. It’s just good to see him continuing to score. The front four as a unit, did their jobs very well today.”
Archie and his squad now have two weeks until their next game as the international break separates them from a trip up north to face Ross County. Thistle travel to the Global Energy Stadium on the 9th September to take on the Staggies with kick-off at 15:00.
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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 ptfc.co.uk.
