Bell sounds the alarm as Thistle are stung by inconsistency again
ALAN ARCHIBALD’S replacement will have better players than a position of third bottom would suggest, but they lack confidence and were cut open too easily by Dundee United on Saturday.
Thistle’s best player was Cammy Bell, which tells you everything, and were it not for the goalkeeper this game would have been done at half-time.
Bell said: “I’ve been in football long enough to know that making a few saves is okay but, for me, I wanted to get a point at least from this game. We rallied well for the last 30 minutes, I would say we were on top, and once we got the goal it did look like were going to get a second and rescue a point.
“But we can’t just do it for half an hour, it needs to be a 90-minute performance. We said that in the dressing room afterwards. That is especially important in this league. And that’s been a factor this season. We need to be consistent, it’s consistent performances which will get us up this league.
“We have got to start doing it for a whole game, not just in parts of the game, 10 minutes here and there, because it’s so easy to lose goals in this league. It’s a difficult league, anyone can beat anyone, and every game we’ve played this season it’s been the case that there’s been very the teams.”
“We need to instil confidence in ourselves and the only way to do that is getting results. We will focus this week on putting a performance in next weekend and to get three points, which really is becoming vital for us.
“The last couple of weeks have been disappointing, the last week was tough for us as players, but we gave away cheap goals, again, and that’s not good enough.”
Goals either side of the interval by Fraser Aird – a fine volley – and Pavel Safranko gave United a deserved lead in a game they dominated for long spells.
Substitute Jai Quitongo, who was sharp when he got little between on, scored with 13 minutes to go, but it was too little too late.
Gerry Britton, the chief executive, was in the dugout and took training last week. He hopes that will be it for him. Although Bell gave his big boss a ringing endorsement.
He said: “Gerry was brilliant all week. I thought training was fantastic. He got us really focussed on this game, which means there are no excuses for us as player, it had nothing to do with the training,. Gerry was spot-on with what we said before and after the game, and it is just down to confidence and individual errors.”
Thistle are at Alloa next and dropping points there is unthinkable.