Thursday 26th December, 2013 at 2:30pm
The Boxing Day fixture with Inverness didn’t produce the hoped for three points despite another good performance. [link:HOME] asked manager Alan Archibald after the game if he and his players were disappointed not to have collected maximum points from a game that they had dominated?
“We certainly are. We played some very good stuff against a side up at the top end of the league. We created a lot of great chances but we just didn’t take them.”
Alan continued;
“It is very frustrating. We are doing the right things and we are playing well and I think we would have deserved the win today on the basis of the we played and the chances that we created but things are just not falling for us. We just need something like a sclaff or mishit to go in. We’re almost striking the ball too well at times. We’re just going through this streak at the moment and hopefully we will come out of it soon. ”
The clean sheet, the first from August, was a major plus to take from the game. Said Alan;
“I thought that we defended well against a good Inverness team that score against most teams. They are a threat at set plays as well and the main positive to take from the game was the fact that we got our first clean sheet of the season since the first game of the season. That’s the main positive but it is still disappointing that we didn’t get our first win at home.”
There was praise for the sponsor’s Man of the Match Gabriel Piccolo and his defensive team mates.
“He did really well again today. Obviously it is hard for him with the language. He does speak English but he obviously needs to get used to the football banter and jargon that we speak. He’s getting better with every game but I was delighted with the whole back four today and the fact that they kept a clean sheet; I felt that they deserved to do that.”
Just past the hour mark Ross Forbes came on to replace Kallum Higginbotham and the manager explained his thinking behind that decision.
“We just tried to change things and try something a little different. We put Ross Forbes on in that area because I think Kallum was coming inside and the lad Shinnie is naturally left footed and stronger on that side. It just wasn’t happening for Kallum. He was good otherwise but in front of goal it just wasn’t dropping for him.”
Alan went on;
“I thought that Ross did well when he came on and I thought that all the subs did well. Stephen O’Donnell hasn’t played a lot of football recently but he came on at half-time and tried to help us win the game and all the subs I felt made a positive impact on the game.”
The football comes at a fair old rate at this time of the year and we are in action again in just a few day’s time and Alan is already focusing on the visit of Motherwell to Firhill on Sunday afternoon.
“We’ve another home game coming up which is a bonus. I thought the fans were brilliant today and we certainly heard them; they were very noisy. We will be up against another very good team on Sunday who are on a good run at the moment. They’ve managed to turn things round after their defeat in the cup. We keep saying to the players that they should be positive, positive, positive and they are playing well. We’re just not getting the rub of the green at the moment but hopefully that will change when we face Motherwell.”
The major question that Thistle fans are asking at the moment is whether any new faces will be coming in during the January transfer window?
“I certainly hope so but we don’t want to get too excited because as we found out in the summer you are expecting things to happen and then on the day that it is supposed to happen it doesn’t. We have a few irons in the fire so to speak and hopefully one will come through as quickly as possible.”
