Saturday 24th October, 2020 at 11:59pm
Partick Thistle and Airdrie went head-to-head on the second round of fixtures in League One. The Jags made four changes from their defeat to Clyde with Wright, Breen, Spitttal and Graham all coming back into the team.
The first half started off well for Thistle as they pressed well for the opening goal. The first chance for the Jags fell to Brian Graham, this came after Richard Foster fired in a dangerous ball from the right-hand side. The ball was lofted to the back post, Airdrie keeper Max Currie got his hand to it, but it was flapped away to only as far as Graham. He tried to get his shot off, but it was blocked, and the danger was cleared by the Airdrie defence.
It was only moments later Thistle had another chance. It was good interlink play from the Jags midfield which saw Docherty slip Murray through on goal. It looked certain to be the opener for the Jags, but the linesman put his flag up indicating it was offside, a call that was very close.
However with all the pressure Thistle were putting on Airdrie, they were reminded of the danger they possessed as a shot from just outside the Thistle box went whizzing past the post.
The Jags continued to pursue the opener. A lovely nutmeg and piece of skill from James Penrice on the left-hand side seen him gain space and drive into the box, his low cross almost found Shea Gordon, but the clearance fell back to Penrice. His right footed cross found Graham, but he couldn’t get a clean header on the ball and the keeper wasn’t troubled.
A handful of chances continued to fall for Thistle with Penrice having a shot from range go over the bar and a Gordon lay off for Murray was saved. Right on the half hour mark Airdrie almost had the ball in the back of the net from a corner. The ref blew for a foul on a Thistle player, but this was a sign of things to come.
Five minutes later a corner was whipped in, Thistle manged to deal with the initial danger, but the second ball manged to find Dale Carrick at the back post unmarked and Airdrie took the lead.
This seemed to have kicked the Jags into life as they looked fired up to get the equaliser. Spittal had a chance from a free kick but the keeper saved it with ease however, a lovely run that beat the offside trap from Shea Gordon seen him and Brian Graham run through on goal. All Gordon had to do was pass it to Graham and he slotted home the equaliser 5 minutes from half time.
The second half started as Thistle has ended it, on top, it was only a minute into the half we seen what was coming for Thistle as Murray swung in a cross from the right-hand side. The cross found Gordon’s head, but he couldn’t steer it towards goal.
Moments later the same scenario played out again. A Murray cross from the right creates problems for the Airdrie defence, as Murray’s cross found Gordon in acres of space, all he had to do was direct it towards goal, but he failed to connect with it properly and it went trickling out for goal kick.
Another handful of chances for Thistle were created as Penrice delivered a dangerous cross into the box. It was met with Brownlie, but he couldn’t direct it towards goal, whilst Graham created chance after he flicked a pass from Docherty around the corner to find Murray, whose resulting cross couldn’t find Graham.
Just before the hour mark Blair Spittal almost scored the goal of the season with a wonderful right footed volley from outside the box, the ball was hit with power and was looking all but certain to fly into the top left-hand corner, but it crashed off the post.
A few moments later, following a swift Thistle counter attack, Spittal was found on the edge of the Airdrie box down on the left-hand side. He collected the ball from Murray, took two steps to his right and curled the ball into the top right-hand corner giving Thistle the lead in the game for the first time.
Thistle done well to manage the game out for the last half an hour, limiting Airdrie to very little chances with the most dangerous attack from Airdrie coming 10 minutes from the end as Breen puts in a last-ditch tackle to prevent the Airdrie striker going through on goal.
The win gave Thistle their first three points of the league campaign ahead of a first trip to the Balmoral Stadium to face Cove Rangers next weekend.
