Thistle do nicely lads
A wedding and a top-six spot have fulfilled Adam Barton’s Firhill fantasies, so can he top this season? Graeme McGarry reports
IT has been a dream season for Adam Barton, with his eye-catching displays in midfield and on occasion, at the back, bringing a touch of class to Partick Thistle and helping them to a top-six finish for the first time since the early 1980s. And he will round off a fantastic year in style by getting married at the end of the season.
The question, of course, is just how Barton and his team can top what they have managed to achieve since last August, but the 26-year-old is not a man to rest on his laurels. He sees no reason Thistle can’t push on after the summer and finish even higher up the table next year.
“I’m getting married to my fiancée Amelia on June 3, then I’m away on my honeymoon and back for another wedding straight after, then back here,” Barton said. “We’re going to the Seychelles for the honeymoon, and from what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard it’s very nice. Hopefully it’s a bit different to Maryhill!
“It’s been a great season and to finish it off by getting married, what a year. I don’t know how next season will top it, but you can’t think like that.
“You’ve got to keep pushing on and doing more, and we definitely have a squad of players who want to keep doing well, and a manager who wants to keep pushing us further than he already has.
“It will be a good place to come back to. You never know, it might be top four next year. Why not? We play teams like Rangers and we should have won twice here.
“Once we tweak those little things out of our game, anything can happen, it really can.
“I’m surprised how close Thistle are to the likes of Rangers. Coming up here, you’re told these teams are on another level from us, but I don’t see that.”
Barton concedes that he and his team-mates were given the runaround by Celtic on Thursday night, but while he says the champions are a class above anything else he has faced since arriving in Scotland, he doesn’t believe the gap between Thistle and Aberdeen, their opponents today, is quite so far to bridge.
“I put Celtic aside and accept they are on a different level, but the rest? We are very much capable of giving them a game,” he said.
“There’s no need for an inferiority complex. Aberdeen is a game where we have to go in and think we can get a result.”
Ryan Christie may have something to say about that. The Celtic midfielder is looking to end his loan spell at Aberdeen on a high with a win at Firhill today.
The 22-year-old attacker, who has notched five goals for Aberdeen, revealed the benefits of playing regularly under Derek McInnes, who has guided the Granite City club to second place in the table for the third successive season and to the Scottish Cup final against treble-chasing Celtic on Saturday.
Christie will not be able to play in the showpiece at Hampden Park so wants to sign off with a bang before he returns to Parkhead to fight for his place next season.
“My time here has been brilliant,” he said. “I want to finish the season on a high.
“What will happen in the future I do not know. I have just been thinking short term, just concentrating on the games coming up.
“We will get Sunday out of the way, then have a holiday and then see how pre-season goes with Celtic. I am still positive that I can break into the team.”