Lindsay’s long game a move down to England
PARTICK THISTLE may have managed to hold on to Liam Lindsay in this transfer window, but team-mate Adam Barton reckons the young defender should move to England for the sake of his career.
Barton is delighted that he will be able to continue playing alongside the highly-rated 21-year-old, right, for now, and he believes that manager Alan Archibald is the right man to help him learn his trade.
But Barton also believes there will be a ceiling on Lindsay’s improvement while playing in Scotland, and a move south will be the only way he will be able to move his game to a higher level.
“I think it would be great for him to move on, if that’s to the Championship down south,” Barton said. “He’d learn a lot down there. “He is learning here from the manager and the assistant and he will keep doing that but there’s a certain standard he’s playing at and that won’t change unless he’s playing with Celtic or Rangers. “He’s played in the Premiership and that’s the highest in Scotland so the only progression is to play down south and if he does that, he’ll learn a lot. “He has everything you’d look for in a centre-half. He’s getting better and better on the ball as well. “A lot of teams down south and in the Championship want players who can do the whole thing. “He has that and he’s still young, so imagine what he’d be like in three or four years’ time if he keeps working hard. He has the attitude to do that. “If he gets a move then it wouldn’t surprise me.” Thistle failed to add to the two signings they made in January on transfer deadline day, but Barton thinks that might not necessarily be a bad thing. With the tight-knit nature of the Thistle squad, as well as the good run they have pieced together since mid-December, there is a case to be made for not rocking the boat.
“Whatever happens happens. But it’s not always a good thing to bring players in, especially the way the team is playing at the moment,” he said. “There are managers who think that if things aren’t going well, they need to bring new players in. But why not just work on the players he has already got?
“He brought these players in for a reason and if he didn’t rate them in the first place then he wouldn’t have brought them in. We have a good depth in the squad just now, we have shown we’re capable of putting back-to-back wins together. We are on a good run at the moment and are keeping clean sheets so I believe we have a strong enough squad to go to the end of the season as it is.”
Barton is almost as calm about the lack of additions to the Thistle squad as he is when he is on the field of play, and he paid tribute to his manager for allowing him to express himself on the pitch ahead of tonight’s home match against St Johnstone.
“The manager is the bigger factor in why I came here as I knew he liked his teams to play,” he said. “If I had a manager who didn’t like to play then I’d be useless, I admit that.
“There are some games this season where you can’t play and I found that out. At places like Inverness is was just like a battle. You have to manage the game as it goes on and I really enjoy playing here and for this manager and I’ll continue to do that. Sometimes things don’t come off. But I like to play and do things, that’s just the way I am.
“Some managers hate it, some love it and the manager here kind of likes it. I bring a calmness to the side and that rubs off on other players.”