Partick Thistle Football Club

After three straight league defeats it was important this afternoon that Thistle got back to winning ways. That they did with a 2-0 win against bottom side Airdrie United which on the face of it may look like a fairly routine victory. It was, however, anything but . In an eventful afternoon two Paul Cairney, who passed a morning fitness test, goals earned Thistle the points in a match where, not for the first time this season, the performance of the match referee prompted much debate. Both Airdrie and Thistle finishing the game with ten men. Airdrie's Alan Trouten collected a second yellow card after taking a free kick too quickly while David Rowson received two yellow cards for fairly innocuous fouls.

Still after recent set backs collecting the full points was the most important thing and when www.ptfc.co.uk caught up with Thistle manager Ian McCall, who watched the game from the old stand as part of a two game ban, was content at least with that fact.

"It was important that we got the victory today and other results went our way as well which made it a good afternoon for us. We scored two good goals in the first and the way that the second half went I thought we could have won 6 or 7 nil or ended up drawing 2-2. It was that kind of game. In the second half Airdrie United played a very much off the cuff type of game and that made things difficult for us at times."

"In saying that we had a lot of really good chances. It's something that I've said before this season but we need to pay more care and attention when trying to finish off teams. There were a few occasions where we have had the opportunity to set up what you would think would be certain goals and not done so. There have also been occasions we were have set up really good chances and still not taking them. The important thing though is that we got the full points and that sets us up for an important game next week at Dundee. That's a tough game but the fact that Airdrie United have won up there this season proves that getting a victory at Dens Park is not an impossible task."

What was an impossible task was avoiding talking about some of the contentious refereeing decisions that were a feature of the second half.

"There were a few strange decisions this afternoon. David Rowson's red card for two bookings was, I thought, harsh and that means that we will miss a game because of suspension. Airdrie too have good reason to feel a little hard done by. Booking a player, and ultimately sending him off because of that, for taking a free kick too quickly was very harsh indeed and Scott Gemmill can count himself very unfortunate to be booked. It's taken a great challenge from Martyn Corrigan to deny him a great chance to score and while it was never a penalty kick nor did Gemmill dive looking for one."