Keown says Thistle can grin and bear it

PARTICK Thistle star Niall Keown wants to see smiles returning to Firhill after their game against Dunfermline today.

But the defender knows the only way to get everyone grinning again is by winning games.

Thistle slumped to rock bottom of the Championship last weekend but Keown is convinced they can turn around their campaign.

Despite picking up just one point from their last nine games Keown is confident they can halt their slump and says they will soon dish out a hammering.

Keown said: “The week become less enjoyable when you are not winning and it’s been too long that we’ve gone without everyone having a smile on their face throughout the week.

“We still have that belief it’s going to come.

“We’ve still got a lot of belief in what we’re doing, all the ideas we’re doing we’re all fully on board with it and we’re pretty sure it will turn at some stage.

“There is only a certain amount of games we can go creating plenty of chances before we win a game three or four nil. We’re still pretty confident those results are going to come but what’s important is that we keep that belief.

“We are actually playing well in games but coming away with nothing to show for it.

“So it’s got be to be now about working even harder and regardless of what the table says we’ve got to work to get ourselves out of that quickly and not getting sucked into the criticism you can get if you go on a run of not winning.”

Keown admits Thistle’s recent run has been the toughest spell of his time in Scotland but believes they are playing well and will get a result soon.

He said: “It’s probably been the most difficult patch I’ve found since I’ve been up here but when we come out of it you’ll learn a lot from this sort of period.

“If we were getting battered in every game then we’d generally be thinking we don’t deserve any points but in every game we’ve played we’ve come away disappointed we haven’t got points.”