Saturday 31st August, 2013 at 2:09pm
The Thistle goals may have been a little late in coming yesterday at St Mirren but when manager Alan Archibald spoke with ptfc.co.uk after the game he was in no doubt that the victory had been a deserved one.
“I thought it was a richly deserved three points for us. I thought that their goal came against the run of play and I felt that we deserved to take the victory. I was delighted too in the manner in which they did it. It was two great goals and they kept on playing football.”
We asked Alan if it was the desire of his players not to settle for a point at that late stage that pleased him the most.
Alan replied;
“That and the fact that they kept on trying to pass the ball. That was a very pleasing thing. It would have been easy for them to change the tactics. That sometimes happens when you go a goal down; you start to panic and do things that you are not good at; and go back to front.”
For Kallum Higginbotham his goal yesterday was his first as a Partick Thistle player; an earlier ‘goal’ at Ross County being disallowed in controversial circumstances. It was no bad way for a player to open his scoring account for a new club although as his manager revealed it was scored with the weaker of his two feet.
“We were laughing about that in the changing room after the game. We moved Kallum over to the right wing and he ends up scoring with his weaker foot. That’s just one of these things; we took the gamble and it was either Kallum or Stevie Lawless that we took off to get Christie Elliott on. It worked for us and we’re delighted with that.”
The manager was delighted that Ross Forbes was the player to have scored the winning goal yesterday.
“We’ve got a good squad and they are good lads. I was delighted for Ross today as he had a big part to play last season. He’s been on the periphery a bit this season but we know what he is capable of doing. It wasn’t an easy chance that he had today either, although he made it look easy.”
Both Thistle goals yesterday were of the highest quality but there was just one thing that disappointed the manager about them.
“I was delighted to get the goals for the fans as well; I would just loved us to have scored them at the other end. It can be a bit patronising when a player or a manager comes out and says that the fans make a difference but they do make a difference when the support is positive. Believe or not a player doesn’t like someone shooting at them but the support we’ve been getting has been all positive and we are delighted to receive that kind of backing.”
Yesterday’s game was our last for a fortnight and we wondered having won yesterday whether it was disappointing not to have a fixture next weekend?
“It would have been different had we lost because it would have been a long two weeks stewing on a defeat. The fact that we won means that we go into the break with a good feeling and it also gives us a couple of weeks to get the likes of Sean Welsh and Jordan McMillan fit again.”
Will the players can’t a few days off?
“We’ll have the players back in on Monday and then maybe give them a couple of days off before the end of the week and give them a bit of a rest and allow the injuries to heal and see what injuries we’ve got.”
