Sunday 9th August, 2015 at 3:20pm
It was difficult for Alan Archibald to hide his disappointment as
he spoke to ptfc.co.uk after today’s game against Celtic. His
side fell to a 2-0 defeat but didn’t threaten their Glasgow rivals
nearly as much as Archibald would have liked.
“We didn’t get the service or possession that I thought we
needed today. You’re playing against the top team in the league
and I thought we gave them far too much respect. When we got the boys in at half time that’s what we focussed on, we just wanted them to go out there and play the way we know they can.
“We never forced Celtic out of second or third gear today and
that’s the most frustrating thing. We know we have what it
takes to hurt the best teams in this division but we certainly didn’t show it today.”
The first half had a tinge of controversy when, what looked like
a stone wall penalty shout, was denied as Lustig appeared to
handle the ball after David Wilson flicked on a deep cross from
Gary Miller.
“I think it’s a difficult one for the refs. There is maybe an
argument that things should be made easier for the officials as
there are too many grey areas at the moment. I’m of the
opinion that a hand ball is a hand ball and that’s that. You’ve
definitely seen those give and I think we were probably a bit
unlucky.
“The biggest disappointment for me was that our best passers of the ball didn
’t keep possession. We gave the ball away far too easily and you can’t do that against any team in this league – especially not Celtic.
“During the last 10 minutes of the first half and in patches after
the break we got at them a bit but it was too little too
late and we’ll need to pick ourselves up and go again in our game against
Inverness on Wednesday.”
