Partick Thistle Football Club

Tomorrow the First Division action moves on to Perth as Thistle come face to face with St Johnstone for the second time this season. After a positive start to the season results and form have taken a slight dip of late with October proving a difficult month for Thistle. A return to the form of the first couple of months of the season, however, would help Thistle sign the month off on a positive note. Ahead of tomorrow's game manager Ian McCall was able to provide www.ptfc.co.uk with the latest team news and an insight into his thinking ahead of tomorrow's game.

"Mark Roberts will miss out as he has a slight problem with his knee at the moment. It's nothing that should keep him out for a prolonged period though and he should be available again in a week or so. There's also a slight doubt at the moment surrounding Marc Twaddle but we are hopefully that he will make it."

"Elsewhere it is only Alan Archibald that is out injured. Alan has been doing a lot of running as part of his rehab recently and we anticipate that he will be able to join us for full training in the next week or two. His return, just as Liam Buchanan's was, will be a big boost."

"I think that, such are the problems we've had up front of late, we are getting to the stage where we will need to include Liam from the start. The thing with Liam is that we know that he will give us his all while on the pitch and it may be that we would play him for 60-70 minutes and then take him off."

"We all felt that we performed better at Dunfermline, particularly in the second half when we created a number of chances, than we had done against Airdrie United and we feel that we perhaps merited a point. It was no coincidence that we did better when Liam came on. Kevin McKinlay did well too and I think he deserves a wee chance up front again."

"There is no doubt that tomorrow's game is going to be a very difficult one. We wouldn't have been too unhappy had we taken a point from our trip to Dunfermline and the St Johnstone game is going to be as equally tough as last week's match was. Once we've completed this difficult run of away games we go into a run of three games at Firhill and our aim is to go into those three games on the back of a positive result against St Johnstone. We're going through a sticky run at the moment but it is the kind of run that I think that all teams will have during the course of the season. St Johnstone, for example, had a sticky spell of their own earlier in the season and came through it and we need to make sure we produce a similarly positive response to this spell as they did. Despite our present run of results we are still just 4 points off the top of the league and tomorrow would be the perfect time for us to start another good run."

While Thistle don't enjoy the best of records at McDiarmid Park the last meeting between the two sides at Firhill produced arguably Thistle's best performance of the season and an emphatic 4-0 home win (pictured John Robertson opening the scoring in that match). St Johnstone are sure to be keen to gain revenge for that defeat and go into tomorrow's fixture with virtually a full squad to select from. Collin Samuel will miss out and it seems likely that midfielder Kevin Moon will sit this fixture out as well. Elsewhere Jody Morris and Kevin James came through a close door friendly with Forfar Athletic during the week and may come into contention for a place in the St Johnstone squad tomorrow.

Prior to kick-off tomorrow St Johnstone will be holding a minute silence in memory of their all time second top appearance maker Charlie McFadyen who passed away during the week.

Tomorrow's Other Fix tures
Airdrie United v Dunfermline Athletic
Clyde v Livingston
Morton v Dundee
Ross County v Queen of the South

Thistle Stats

Current Form - Last Five Games
W D L F A
0 1 4 2 7

Scorers Season 2008/2009
Stephen McKeown 5
Damon Gray 4
Gary Harkins 4
Ian Maxwell 4
Scott Chaplain 2
Simon Donnelly 1
Paul Paton 1
Mark Roberts 1
John Robertson 1
Chris Turner 1
Marc Twaddle 1

Last Match
Irn-Bru Scottish League First Division
Dunfermline Athletic 1, Partick Thistle 0

St Johnstone Stats

Current Form - Last Five Games
W D L F A
4 1 0 10 4

Scorers Season 2008/2009
Steven Milne 6
Derek Holmes 4
Collin Samuel 3
Paul Sheerin 3
Gavin Swankie 2
Liam Craig 1
Martin Hardie 1
Stuart McCaffrey 1
Peter MacDonald 1
Own Goal 1

Last Match
Irn-Bru Scottish League First Division
Livingston 0, St Johnstone 1

Last Meeting
Irn-Bru Scottish League First Division
Saturday August 23rd 2008
Partick Thistle 4, St Johnstone 0
Teams
Thistle: Tuffey, Paton, Twaddle (McKinlay), Storey, Robertson, Maxwell, McKeown, Lennon (Gray), Donnelly (Roberts), Harkins
St Johnstone: Main, McCaffrey, Trialist, Anderson, Rutkiewicz (Irvine), Craig (McKoy), Millar, Hardie, MacDonald Holmes), Milne
Scorers
Thistle: Robertson (6), Maxwell (48), Paton (66), Harkins (72)
Crowd: 2,961

Match Details
Saturday October 25th 2008
Irn-Bru Scottish League First Division
St Johnstone v Partick Thistle
Kick-off: 3:00pm

Prices
Adults: £17
Under 16s: £6
16-18: £10 (proof of age may be required)
Senior Citizens: £7

Match Officials
Referee: Colin Brown
Assistant Referees: John Bicknell and Alan Mulvanny