Jags need boost to ease the pressure
Archibald next to feel heat as sacking season begins early
IF bad news really does come in threes, then those individuals still employed as managers of Scottish Premiership clubs have good reason to dread seeing their chairman’s name f l ashing up on their mobile phones in the coming days.
First Ian Baraclough and then Jackie McNamara. The departure of neither man, truthfully, came as a great surprise to those who have been following the (mis) fortunes of Motherwell and Dundee United of late.
But the fact that blood has twice been spilled on the boardroom carpet even before the traditional October sacking season had dawned was hardly a source of comfort f or t hose in s i milar predicaments throughout the land.
For Alan Archibald, the need to emerge victorious from Saturday’s home game against a Dundee United side now in a state of total flux is hard to overstate.
While there is no suggestion the Partick Thistle boss’s immediate future is on the line on Saturday, he will be acutely aware that no manager can hide from the probing beam of results forever.
Until this season, the 37-year-old had been an unqualified success in the post he stepped into following McNamara’s defection to Tannadice in January 2013.
Immediately immersed in a two-way fight with Morton for the one and only place that would end the Maryhill club’s nine-year exile from the top flight, Partick not only romped to the second-tier title by 11 points but did so by playing an aesthetically-pleasing passing game.
The Premiership was always going to prove a stern examination not just of Archibald’s managerial ability at a higher level but of his willingness to continue to play in the style that had served his side so well up until that point. He secured pass marks on both counts.
Although it took his side until the end of February to record their first home win in the league, Thistle did enough on the road to clinch 10th place and thus avoid t he play- off with Hamilton t hat ultimately saw Hibernian sucked into the second tier.
Last season’s narrative was an even more resounding success story. A first home win banked with a four-goal hiding of Ross County on day one, Archibald’s men briefly flirted with the top six before finishing comfortably in eighth spot. If there was an expectation that the Jags would inevitably kick on from t hat f i ne campaign, t he f act Archibald would find his squad depleted numerically and diluted in quality by the time hostilities came round again put paid to any notion of that.
Kallum Higginbotham may have been a f rustrating player at times in Thistle colours but the player’s s witch t o Kilmarnock deprived Archibald of one of hi s most creative talents.
Conrad Balatoni has toiled to make quite the same impact at Rugby Park since his move f rom Thistle but, while he may never have been a firm favourite with Jags’ f ans, Archibald can testify to the defender’s stoic dependability.
For differing reasons, the Thistle boss has also been shorn of both of his full-backs from last season. Stephen O’Donnell, now of Luton Town, may have had his moments of uncertainty on the back-foot but his qualities in the final third were beyond dispute.
And, for all the nuclear fall- out from his sacking for failing a drugs test, there is no question that Jordan McMillan gave Archibald a decent option at full back. With James Craigen — an energetic midfielder who was only released for budgetary reasons — now at Falkirk and Lyle Taylor, the striker who arrived for a second loan spell, now at Wimbledon, Thistle fans can only lament how quickly the club has slipped into reverse gear.
Archibald has made commendable attempts to promote from within and this policy has made an instant star of young central defender Jack Hendry but, with every penny a prisoner, the 20- year- old was spirited to Wigan in August after just four appearances.
Forced to rummage in the bargain bins for players with the vital spark that could turn performances into points, Archibald recruited Mathais Pogba and Mustapha Dumbuya — a centre forward and an attacking full back respectively, both arriving with fascinating back stories but so far not a goal between them.
They are hardly alone in that sense. In their 10 games in all competitions this season, Thistle have scored just three times — Kris Doolan’s double in the 2-2 home draw with Kilmarnock and David Amoo’s strike in the defeat at Fir Park last weekend.
The three points they have accrued to date is seven less than they had on the board a year back. They are also 12 goals worse off.
The trouble f rom the club’s perspective is that it’s not just their points tally that’s shrinking. Despite last season’s relatively- successful campaign, the average gate at Firhill alarmingly went down by 600. Notwithstanding the negative i mpact that has had on Archibald’s budget, chairman David Beattie (below) has left no one in any doubt as to the l evel of expectation at the outset of this campaign.
‘We don’t want to embark on a season with our fans wondering if we’ll stay up,’ he stated.
‘We want to reach the point where they are almost sure we’ll stay up and it’s about how high we can finish. A club our size, with the stadium and set-up we have, should be where we are (in the Premiership). We can’t, and won’t, sit still.’
Victory over United on Saturday would guarantee that much. Leap-frogging a side with Dave Bowman at the helm may only see the Jags move up to 11th place at t he expense of t he Tannadice men but it would at least be a step in the right direction.
For all the strides Thistle have made under his watch these past two-and-a-half years, now more than ever Archibald needs that.