Thistle’s revival gathers steam
SEVEN points from three games in eight days represented an excellent return for Partick Thistle, who have finally moved off the bottom of the Premiership table as a result of that sequence, their best of the campaign so far.
The fact that they have played better than they did during that productive week and lost is neither here nor there — in a results business, the bottom line is all that counts.
Manager Alan Archibald was delighted with the victory against St Johnstone yesterday — claimed by a Miles Storey strike — and the fact that it gives him and his players some breathing space.
What really pleased him, though, was the fact that his team has, at last, made themselves hard to break down.
‘The stuffiness to get another clean sheet was satisfying,’ he said. ‘We had a horrific start with the goals we lost, so to get back-toback clean sheets is pleasing.
‘Also our game management, to see the game out. You could see at times we still looked a bit fragile so I was delighted to see it out.
‘Miles Storey showed his pace and there was a great bit of composure from him to finish it off. He just has to get a run of games now to get his confidence up. He had a great season at Inverness before joining Aberdeen.
‘The strikers we used today did really well. They need confidence, but Miles knows if he comes out of the side it will be to suit the demands of the opposition or to give someone else a chance.
‘Certain strikers suit certain games and they did well in this game. It gets us off the bottom and gets the confidence up. It’s been a good week from where we started but we now have a tough run of games coming up.’
Saints came desperately close to taking the lead in their first attack. Brian Easton’s cross to the far post was nodded down by Graham Cummins (pictured below with Thistle’s Jordan Turnbull) for David Wotherspoon, but Tomas Cerny was alert to the danger and raced from his line to block the midfielder’s attempt.
It was Thistle who broke the deadlock, though, when Storey, the matchwinner against Dundee seven days earlier, scored a magnificent solo goal in the 14th minute.
He collected the ball on the left flank and swiftly moved through the gears, leaving Aaron Comrie and Joe Shaughnessy in his wake before placing the ball behind the advancing Zander Clark from a tight angle.
Saints bit back and Cerny was once again forced to spread himself to keep out a drive from point-blank range from Murray Davidson.
They had no better luck with injuries, losing Stefan Scougall and Brian Easton inside the first 25 minutes, replacing them with Michael O’Halloran and Scott Tanser. Unfortunately for both sets of fans, the match soon degenerated into a scrappy affair, with long diagonal balls the order of the day in a contest which was pock-marked by petty fouls. St Johnstone midfielder Liam Craig collected the first yellow card of the afternoon on the stroke of half-time, when he wrestled Cerny to the ground as the goalkeeper collected a cross, an offence born of simple frustration. Tanser sliced a shot over the crossbar after getting on the end of an O’Halloran cross. There was little in the way of quality or composure evident here. Saints, invited to attack due to Thistle sitting deep in an attempt to hold what they had, found it hard to negotiate a way through the two banks of four between them and Cerny’s goal. The first save of the second period did not arrive until seven minutes from time, when Blair Spittal played a one-two with substitute Kris Doolan before forcing a superb one-handed stop from Clark at his near post.
Saints huffed and puffed but never really looked like equalising, and they have now gone five games without a goal.
‘We’ve had these runs before,’ said manager Tommy Wright. ‘In my first year, we went nine without a win. The next year was eight and then there were seven or eight last year. It happens in this league.
‘It’s a different type of annoyance, though, in that they’ve played really well and got themselves into good positions.
‘We controlled the game but we’ve let ourselves down with a soft goal from our point of view. With all the good possession we had, it then came down to poor decision-making or the wrong ball or nobody showing belief in the last third.
‘Our approach play was good, a number of times we got full-backs overlapping and got wide players into good areas. We just didn’t have that final ball, didn’t show that wee bit of composure.
‘I’ve told them it was a really good performance up to a point, in terms of creating more chances out of the possession we had, which let us down.
‘We’re still sixth in the table which shows what this division is like. Maybe our players are over-analysing situations.
‘The quality is there because they’ve proved it in the past. But it isn’t allowed to come through because of poor decision making and, possibly, a lack of confidence but we’ve dominated the ball, which is unusual for us here.’
Even so, after 456 minutes without a goal, the last thing Saints need is champions Celtic visiting McDiarmid Park on Saturday.