STOWE: WE ARE STILL BATTLING ON
MARK STOWE refuses to chuck in the towel on Arbroath’s Championship survival hopes – insisting there’s still plenty of fight left in the Gayfield side.
Stowe was gutted as Lichties crashed at home to a damaging defeat by Partick Thistle that leaves them nine points adrift of second-bottom Inverness.
But Arbroath do have a game in hand and back-toback home games with Dunfermline and Airdrie before they travel to face the Highland side on April 6.
And Stowe said: “The attitude of the boys is still spot-on. We’ll go again this week and have a massive game at home to Dunfermline before we play Airdrie in the midweek.
“There’s a chance to build a bit of momentum going into the Inverness game by getting six points out of six from our two home games. Then we’ll go to Inverness and see what happens up there.
“We’re still fighting for one another. We’ve been unlucky with injuries and have all had to play out of position at some point.
“But the players always give 100 per cent. We’ll keep battling on and see where it gets us.
“Everyone still believes. No one is naive. We’re in a difficult position and the games are running out so we need to start winning.
“There are leaders everywhere in our dressing room and they are so important to rally us when the going gets tough.
“They make sure we’re all giving 100 per cent – which we are – but we now need to convert that to points.”
The hosts started brightly and long-serving defender Ricky Little met an Innes Murray corner to test Jags keeper David Mitchell with a bullet header.
Mitchell was equal to that and while Arbroath had a further chance for Ryan Dow to get on the end of a teasing Murray cross, it was Thistle who grabbed the all-important strike.
Aidan Fitzpatrick turned Connor Teale inside out before drilling low beyond Derek Gaston to seal a crucial win for the Glasgow side.
Arbroath fought hard and looked like a team that is still determined to throw everything at survival.
But after being denied a late penalty claim as Stowe’s cross appeared to be blocked by Aaron Muirhead, they fell short again.
For third-place Thistle, the picture couldn’t look more different. The win moves them eight points clear of Dunfermline in fifth as they edge closer to sealing their play-offs spot.
Jags – who suffered playoff heartbreak last term with a penalty shoot-out loss to Ross County – have now recovered from a eight-game winless streak to win back-to-back games with Morton and Arbroath.
Winger Fitzpatrick said: “We were in a comfortable position for a while but teams started to catch us.
“That’s just the type of league we’re in. You can see from the battle at the top – no one seems to want to win it.
“We need to focus, game by game, to hopefully get the play-off spot and then, as we saw last year, anything can happen.”