Match Preview
With no fixture last weekend there is a heightened sense of anticipation ahead of tomorrow’s fixture with Livingston.
We went into our brief break with renewed confidence and on the back of two 2-0 victories.
A third successive Thistle win tomorrow would take Thistle above Livingston in the league table and back firmly in a challenging position at the top of the league.
A regular feature on Fridays here on www.ptfc.co.uk is an update of affairs down Firhill way from manager Ian McCall and today is no exception.
“We will be without Marc Twaddle tomorrow and at present there is a slight doubt surrounding John Robertson. John has been an important player for us and we are keen for him to be available but if he isn’t we have in Simon Storey a player who is more than capable of coming in.”
While Marc Twaddle will miss out tomorrow and John Robertson is listed as doubtful there is still good news on the injury front elsewhere.
“We played a friendly match with Motherwell during the week and won 2-1 with a number of players producing excellent performances. Mark Roberts scored the winning goal in that fixture and he will come into the squad for tomorrow. The great news from that match though was the return of Alan Archibald who played the whole second half of that game without any adverse reaction. Alan is still perhaps 2-3 weeks away from being ready for the first team but we were encouraged by what we saw on Wednesday. Alan virtually strolled through the game in addition to producing some trademark headers. We have been lucky in a way with injuries in as much as we have never had about 9 players out at the same time but the two long term players missing were arguably two of our most important players. Liam is just about fully fit again and with Alan well on the road to the same we can look forward to the remainder of the season with optimism.”
“Tomorrow is our third home game in a row and it was always our aim to take a maximum 9 points from those three games. With wins already recorded against Queen of the South and Clyde we are on track to reach that target. It will be a tough game against Livingston. Is there any other kind of fixture in the First Division? We stress to the players that it doesn’t matter who we are playing against we need to be at our best if we want to win all three points. Victory tomorrow against Livingston would set things up nicely for our midweek trip to Ross County. Wins from our next two matches and we are sure not to be too far away from the top of the league.”
