We’ve lost our identity... and we’re all guilty
SAYS THISTLE’S CHRIS ERSKINE
CHRIS ERSKINE last night accused Partick Thistle of losing their identity — and admitted the crisis club have been ‘terrible all over the pitch’ in a season of struggle.
Alan Archibald’s rock-bottom side are without a win in their last nine games, with the undoubted low point being Tuesday’s 4-0 thumping by Ross County which saw the Dingwall side leapfrog the Jags on goal difference at the foot of the Premiership.
Thistle have now gone a worrying 441 minutes since last scoring a goal while, at the other end of the park, they have conceded nine in their last three matches.
Citing nerves as a factor in their relegation battle, striker Erskine believes the team have moved away from the effective passing game that saw them finish sixth last season — the club’s highest league finish since 1981.
This campaign, by contrast, has been one of toil and failures right across the team, which have left Archibald’s men staring at the abyss with six games left.
Asked if it was the whole team’s responsibility to solve their goalscoring problem, Erskine candidly replied: ‘Everything has been a problem. I don’t think it’s just goals. We can’t say it’s just that.
‘It’s not just one thing. We’ve been terrible at the back as well. We’ve been terrible all over the pitch. I’m sure everybody would say the same. It’s not been good enough in any department. We really need to get everything going at the one time.
‘Even in games where we have scored a couple of goals, we have conceded a few as well at the other end. The whole team as one has to be accountable for it.
‘What has happened to us this season? I don’t have the answer to that, although I think, to an extent, that we’ve lost our identity. We were a good passing team in previous years and that is something we have got away from a wee bit.
‘I think we have maybe got away from doing the stuff that we have been good at in the past few years. I know it’s hard when you are in the kind of position we are in, but we need to be brave and start doing what we think we’re good at.
‘That is the way to get out of it. Everybody has to play to their strengths. For me, passing is our strength and the sooner we get back to that the better. We’ve still been passing the ball as much as we used to but, given our current position, everyone’s getting a bit nervous.’
Next up for Thistle is a home match with the form team in Scotland this afternoon as Steve Clarke’s Kilmarnock visit The Energy Check Stadium at Firhill.
Erskine called on his teammates to use Tuesday’s Highland humiliation in Dingwall as motivation to get out of the rut they find themselves in.
‘It was a terrible result. There is no getting away from it,’ he said.
‘We had a chance to get ourselves away from the bottom place and we didn’t manage to do it. We have put ourselves in a terrible position now. But I think it has just made us even more determined now to stay up. We have six games to go and six games that we feel we can get wins from.
‘But it doesn’t get any harder than Kilmarnock. They have been fantastic since Steve Clarke took over. He has done an incredible job at Rugby Park and it is going to be a tough game for us.
‘When we were at the top of our game we are capable of beating anyone. And that is what we have to strive to get back to. I guess as a club we have never done anything the easy way in the last few years, but we have really stuck ourselves in it this time. It is going to take a massive effort for us to get out of it.’
Erskine knows what it is like to be part of a team fighting a losing battle against relegation.
But when his former employers Dundee United sank like a stone under Jackie McNamara and then Mixu Paatelainen in 2016, the 31-year-old had already signed a pre-contract to join Thistle in the summer and was subsequently left out of the team. That was his second permanent spell at Thistle, who took a chance on him by plucking him from the Juniors with Kilbirnie Ladeside in 2009. Admitting he felt more detached from United’s demise due to his personal circumstances, the striker acknowledges it was still a deeply unpleasant experience.
His connection with Thistle is far stronger, and Erskine confessed he would be ‘devastated’ if the Maryhill club do go down.
‘I saw the effect relegation had on people at Dundee United and it’s not nice.
‘I don’t want that to happen to Thistle and the rest of the lads feel pretty much the same way.
‘You hear it bandied about a lot that players don’t care but of course they do — it’s their livelihood and it affects everyone in different ways.
‘We had a lot of foreign boys that season at Dundee United and most of them were only there until the end of that season.
‘I’m not saying that it was any easier for them but, with Thistle, this means more to me.
‘Thistle brought me into full-time football from the Juniors and that changed my life. That’s why it feels different for me — I’d be devastated if I was part of anything that went wrong for this club. We all care but we need to get back to what we were doing last season as soon as possible.’
When Partick Thistle saw off Morton to win the old First Division in 2013, it ended a nineyear absence from the top flight.
If anything, the recent history of the second tier shows it to be even more merciless than before.
Rangers needed two attempts to win promotion, Hibs three, and Archibald’s former club United are making such heavy weather of their second season in the Championship they may not even make the play-offs.
For Erskine, the countdown is on to avoid the disaster of dropping into a league so notoriously difficult to escape.
‘That’s exactly it — it’s a tough, tough league,’ he said. ‘There are no guarantees that Dundee United will come up this season. Rangers and Hibs also found it hard.
‘It’s definitely got even harder to win promotion since we came up in 2013, so we definitely don’t want to go back there. Everyone associated with this club is desperate to be playing in the Premiership next season.
‘Now we have six games left to save our season.’
We need to be braver ... and get back to a passing game I saw the way relegation hit Dundee United ... it’s not nice