Sammon and Storey offer Thistle an edge
NIALL KEOWN was delighted to see Partick Thistle draft in two strikers that he knows his fellow Premiership defenders will detest playing against. Alan Archibald gave Friday night debuts to Miles Storey and Conor Sammon as Celtic saw out a 1-0 victory at Firhill thanks to a deflected first-half Olivier Ntcham strike. Thistle’s business was completed just in time to allow 30-year-old Sammon, on a season-long loan from Hearts, to play the full match against the champions. Storey, on a two-year contract after leaving Aberdeen, was introduced to the Firhill faithful from the bench when replacing Kris Doolan on 58 minutes. Keown clashed with both forwards last term as he found his feet in Scottish football, with Sammon scoring for Kilmarnock in a 1-1 draw and Storey making a sub appearance for the Dons. The Thistle frontline will not lack for physicality, power and pace now that Archibald has increased his attacking options for the long haul ahead. ‘A few of the lads who have been here longer than me have faced them a fair few times, so are really pleased we’ve managed to get them in rather than play against them again,’ said Keown. ‘I thought Conor did a great job coming in against Celtic. He’s a real man up there for us, that’ll help us in the long run when the season really gets tough.
‘Miles then came on, showed his pace and how dangerous he is up there with his ability to get in behind. They seem to be good additions to the squad.
‘With Conor’s size, he’s not easy to play against. He gives us an outlet if we need that. We lost Ade Azeez in the summer, who was the physical player for us. It’s probably like for like.
‘I think his physicality could make a difference. There are some real battles in this league. Sometimes the game is won by whoever wins the battles.
‘He’ll definitely be important to us as the season goes on. We’ll get to know them a bit more now and I’m sure they’ll blend well into the team.’ Thistle remained in the contest throughout and almost levelled through Doolan’s free header from Christie Elliott’s cross and, in stoppage time, Andrew Dallas waved away strong penalty claims as Storey tumbled under a clumsy challenge by makeshift centre-half Nir Bitton. ‘We got a penalty midweek against St Johnstone where someone was going away from goal and it was probably a similar thing,’ contested Keown. ‘I don’t know what the referee saw from his angle, I can’t really say. ‘Miles said he’d been clipped and, from where I was, I thought it should have been a penalty.
‘We knew we could stay in the game because we did it last year against Celtic but it was tough going. Celtic keep the ball on the floor a lot.
‘So you have to be aware of runners going off your shoulder and there’s lots of different bits of movement that you have to pick up on. You have to talk as a team a lot.
‘If you switch off at all, they’ll probably get in. There’s not as much of a physical battle as there is when you play other teams. It can be harder work against Celtic.
‘And I thought we can be proud as a team of how hard we worked. We can take positives from it, they didn’t cut us open as much as they do other teams.
‘We got a point against them last season and we went on to bigger and better things after that. We’ll work on a few things to make sure we’re more effective and can get a few more goals.’