Saturday 24th October, 2015 at 3:04pm
Thistle returned to Firhill, looking to carry on a run of good form which had resulted in the side accumulating six points from its previous two Ladbrokes Premiership games. In their way stood an Accies side which occupied a top six slot, after another good start to a league season.
Thistle made two chances to the side which had narrowly defeated St Johnstone. Abdul Osman was missing through suspension which allowed Ryan Edwards to win his first start as a Partick Thistle player. The other change saw Mustapha Dumbuya return to his right back slot, at the expense of Gary Miller who notched a spectacular effort last week. Hamilton were missing the influential midfielder Ali Crawford through injury for the first time in a couple of years.
Thistle were turned around and found themselves shooting towards the unfamiliar City End in the first half. It was maybe this change which caused the team to have a slow start with only Amoo’s sliced back post shot threatening Michael McGovern in the Accies goal.
Accies, unlike Thistle, were proving to be a constant threat with a series of high pressing and picking up on slack passes proving a dangerous formula for Thistle. After Edwards had been picked off, Morris saw the lunging Lindsay block his effort before the rebound was lifted over the bar by Greg Docherty.
The referee, Euan Anderson, was keen to let the play flow and after allowing an advantage for Lawless being struck in the head by a high boot, continued to apply the ruling throughout the game.
It was Lawless who missed Thistle’s golden chance when he got on the end of Booth’s cross. Sadly for the diminutive midfielder he was unable to direct is header on target. The counter attack started with a long kick from Cerny, a kick which seemed to cause the Czech goalkeeper a significant amount of pain. After a lengthy stoppage to be treated by the physio, it was deemed he would be unable to continue. It allowed Ryan Scully to make his first Partick Thistle appearance since Thistle’s famous 5-1 victory over Dunfermline Athletic in November 2012.
Accies still continued to have the better of the play around the goal with a cross ball being missed yards from goal as Imrie elected not to gamble and throw his body at it. As the clock ticked over into five minutes of injury time the game took a dramatic twist.
Firstly, David Amoo found himself clean through on goal, but after twisting and turning inside the box, he found his shot blocked by a recovering Accies defender. Amoo was also to play a part in the action as Accies went down to ten men. He picked the pocket of Lucas Tagliapietra and seemed destined to burst through on goal as the Brazilian defender held him back. It was a clear red card for denying a goalscoring opportunity
Thistle started the second half, knowing they were facing ten men, but somehow Accies were the side finding space in and around the penalty area, with Dougie Imrie arching a shot narrowly over the bar.
Thistle were restricted to efforts from range until with the hour mark looming Thistle stole the lead. Scully rolled the ball out to his centre half, and within five passes the ball was in the net. Booth slipped the ball to Amoo, who cut back onto his right foot to send a cross for Pogba to ghost in at the back post. It was a good close range finish for the Guinean International who finally got off the mark for Thistle.
Going a goal up did not give Thistle a great deal of confidence and instead of being on the front foot, against ten men, they found themselves going deeper as Accies continued to break quickly and pose a real menace on the counter attack. Thistle’s slack passes and poor clearances were being picked up by Hamilton and when the equaliser came with less than 15 minutes to play, it wasn’t particularly unexpected.
Scully’s goalkick was won by Canning with Nade able to hold the ball up. He played it back to Kurtaj who saw the run of Imrie and played a slide pass through to the attacked. Holding off Seaborne, Imrie took the ball around the advancing Scully before slotting into an empty net to drag Accies level.
Worse could have followed with Scully making a tremendous low save from Gillespie from the edge of the box. Accies became content to settle for a point and despite a Doolan volley going just inches past the post, they were to get it. The only real positive Alan Archibald was able to take from this game, was the extension of the unbeaten run to three games.
