Match Preview
The football in the early stages of the season comes at a fast and furious rate. We had a rare midweek off last week but this week we again have the opportunity to enjoy an evening at the football. This week the attention turns to the Second Round of the Co-Operative Insurance Cup and the first visit to Firhill for a competitive fixture from a Falkirk side for the best part of six years.
It’s an attractive fixture but one that manager Ian McCall, when speaking to www.ptfc.co.uk , admitted will also be a very tough one.
“Falkirk, alongside Dunfermline, Dundee and Ross County are among the favourites to win the First Division this season and rightly so. They have a lot of very good players, including Marc Twaddle who will be making his first return to Firhill as a player, players who have spent the last few seasons playing the SPL. I noticed with interest recently that the Falkirk players paid for their own hotel accommodation when they played Ross County away. Given the disparity in wages between their players and ours I don’t think I would have the temerity to ask my players to do the same.”
“We had Falkirk watched on Saturday and they played well in defeating a very stuffy Stirling Albion team. As the home side tonight we won’t be setting up our side the way that Stirling did on Saturday and while we acknowledge that the game will be a difficult one it is also one well within our capabilities of winning.”
The manager continued;
“It’s a big, big game for us. As are each of our next four matches, four games that we feel are winnable if we play as well as we can do. We want to continue to do well in both cups and kick on in the league. I don’t believe that we have made a bad start to the season at all. We’ve lost just two matches from the six that we’ve played. The disappointing thing though has been the manner in which we lost those two games. The Raith Rovers game was, perhaps, a little false but we will be looking for a definite improvement tonight on how we played against Morton on Saturday. Although defensively I thought we were fine on Saturday, overall I don’t like to see us play like that. We didn’t really carry a threat at all against Morton and we will need to be much more positive in how we play tonight. Similar in fact to the positive approach we took into our last two home games against Berwick Rangers and Dundee.”
To round things off the manager provided us with the latest team news.
“It’s basically the same squad for tonight’s game as it was at Cappielow at the weekend. Ryan MacBeth and Kieran Burns are carrying slight injuries but will be back in full training on Thursday. Otherwise, with the exceptions of Alan Archibald and Jackie McNamara, everyone is fine. Both Jackie and Alan are making good progress. Jackie will need at least another game under his belt before being back in contention for a first team place and Alan too will need a couple of games when he gets close to full fitness once more.”
Partick Thistle Stats
Current Form – Last Five Games
W D L F A
3 0 2 4 7
Scorers Season 2010/2011
Paddy Boyle 1
Liam Buchanan 1
Paul Cairney 1
Simon Donnelly 1
Ryan MacBeth 1
David Rowson 1
Last Game
Irn-Bru Scottish League First Division
Saturday August 21st 2010
Morton 2, Partick Thistle 0
Falkirk Stats
Current Form – Season 2010/2011
W D L F A
2 0 1 4 1
Scorers Season 2010/2011
Jack Compton 1
Ryan Flynn 1
Mark Stewart 1
Marc Twaddle 1
Last Game
Irn-Bru Scottish League First Division
Saturday August 21st 2010
Falkirk 3, Stirling Albion 0
Last Meeting
Co-Operative Insurance Cup Second Round
Tuesday August 23rd 2005
Falkirk 2, Partick Thistle 1
Teams
Falkirk: Glennon, Lawrie, Ireland (Ross), Rodrigues, McPherson, Thomson, Santos Lima (Scally), Latapy, O’Donnell, Duffy, McBreen (Gow).
Thistle: Arthur, Snowdon, Murray, Santala, Smyth (A Gibson), J Gibson (B Gibson), Gillies, McCulloch, Brady, Nicholas (McConalogue), Kilgannon.
Scorers
Falkirk: O’Donnell (10 & 24)
Thistle: Gillies (23)
Crowd: 2,575
Match Details
Co-Operative Insurance Cup Second Round
Tuesday August 24th 2010
Partick Thistle v Falkirk
Kick-off: 7:45pm
Prices
Adults £12
Concessions £6
Programme £2.50
Please note season tickets are NOT valid for this fixture
Match Officials
Referee: Charlie Richmond
Assistant Referees: Ross Haswell and Alan Mulvanny
Fourth Official: Des Roache
Other Co-Operative Insurance Cup Fixtures
Alloa Athletic v Aberdeen
Brechin City v Dundee
Dunfermline Athletic v Clyde
Hearts v Elgin City
Inverness Caledonian Thistle v Peterhead (Wednesday)
Kilmarnock v Airdrie United (Wednesday)
Queen of the South v Forfar Athletic (Wednesday)
Raith Rovers v Hamilton Accies
Ross County v St Mirren (Wednesday)
St Johnstone v Morton
