Thursday 18th July, 2019 at 3:23pm
After signing just before kick off on Saturday, Alex Jones had to wait till just before kick off on Tuesday for clearance to come through for him to take his place on the bench as Thistle took on Queen’s Park.
It was all worth it for the striker as he took his Thistle bow as a second half sub. After the match the Englishman admitted he was delighted to make his first appearance in red and yellow.
Speaking to ptfc.co.uk he said: “I’m pleased to have made my debut and to get out there and get my Thistle career started. I really enjoyed it, I haven’t played much football this pre-season so it was good to blow the cobwebs off a little and get out and get some game time.
“It was a good win for the team, it got a bit scrappy in the second half but we knew they would try and throw everything at us. I thought we dealt quite well with it overall. We came here to win and we managed to do that, that’s the important thing.”
Jones knows how influential getting that winning mentality is as Thistle head towards the league season opener against Alloa in a little over two weeks.
“It strengthens our position in the group and the aim at the start of the weekend was two wins from two so we’ve done that. You want to be going into the season confident and winning games and we’ve done that so far and long may it continue.
“We want to keep the momentum going on Saturday and we know that will be a tough test but it is one we thoroughly look forward to.”
Jones had done extra training pre-season as he looked to get his pre-season fitness up to the levels of the rest of the squad. With a few days now until the next game he is looking forward to settling in with the rest of the team
“I’ve only had the one training session with the team but I did some extra training this morning before the game and got the 20 minutes which is a good start to build up my match sharpness. It’s been a good day but one with a lot of hard work. I’ll have the chance to train more with the team as the week goes on and really start building my fitness up.”
Jones is looking forward to the competition for places in the team and feels it’s something which will drive all the players on.
“There’s good competition for places here and I know I have to do everything I can to get myself in that team. Kenny scored tonight and we know what he brings, he was telling me he is almost at 900 games. A player like that, with all that experience is good for the likes of myself and Lewis Mansell to learn from but we bring our own attributes and we’ll all drive each other on. Competition will drive success.”
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