Friday 9th December, 2016 at 11:00am
Sean Welsh knows the odds are stacked against the side as they face top of the table Celtic at Firhill but says the players go into the game with belief.
Celtic are unbeaten in the league this term and Welsh is hoping to end that run on Friday night.
“We’re aware it’s going to be hard game. We know what we are up against but we go into the match confident. We go in believing if we perform well we can take something from the game. We go into every game believing we can win and that doesn’t change against Celtic on Friday night.
“We probably deserved to win the game against Hamilton. We had the goal chopped off that should have stood and we had the better of the play so there is a lot of positives to take from that game going into the match against Celtic.
“We know we face a completely different task, it will be a different type of game, Celtic will come here high in confidence and looking to play their good football. The way they are playing they might be coming expecting to win the game but we have to take advantage of that, we need to make it difficult for them and cause them problems.”
Motherwell suffered a heartbreaking last minute defeat to the champions despite leading 2-0 and then 3-2. Sean feels this shows Celtic can be got at.
“Motherwell caused them problems last week, they have shown they have their weaknesses but you also saw in that game Celtic’s strengths. We know we can’t show them too much respect and we have to go out and play out game and take the game to them. We can’t let them get into any sort of rhythm.
“We’ve watched Celtic, they have been starting games well, we have to make sure we are on it from the very first whistle, we have to be right in at them early on and not let them get a foothold in the game. They had a game during the week in Europe so we have to try and take advantage of that.”
The match Friday will be live on BTSport and the Thistle midfielder is hoping to put on a performance for the watching audience, both on TV and in the ground.
“I always enjoy Friday night matches. There’s something special about them. Especially at Firhill under the floodlights. Celtic will bring a big crowd and the Thistle fans will be right up for it so it will be a good atmosphere and we have to use that to our advantage. It’s live on TV so we will obviously be wanting to put on a performance.”
“We’ve got a run of fixtures coming up where many will write us off and expect us to take nothing from them but we put pressure on ourselves and expect ourselves to take something from every game we play in and this game will be no different.
“People will write us off, as they will most teams against Celtic but we want to go out there and show people what we can do and maybe surprise a few people.”
Welsh scored his first Premiership goal from open play against Hamilton last weekend and is hoping to add to that before the season is out
“It was great to get the goal last week, it was more important that it got he team back into the game. I managed to find a bit of composure from somewhere, not sure where! It was my first goal from open play for a few seasons so it was a nice one and i will be looking to add to it, so would be nice to do that on Friday.”
