The Thistle Archive

It was another night of acute disappointment for Thistle as yet another home game slipped by without Thistle managing to record a win. This time a first half goal from St Johnstone’s Stevie May condemned Thistle to defeat on a wet and miserable night at Firhill. Pre-match much of the attention was centred on the Firhill return of Chris Erskine and he duly took up a place in a starting eleven that showed two changes from the side that had drawn with Kilmarnock. The suspended pair of Stuart Bannigan and Aaron Taylor-Sinclair being replaced by the aforementioned Erskine and Jordan McMiilan, who filled in at left back. It was the visitors that started this game firmly on the front foot as Thistle made a surprisingly insipid start to the game. That it took until the 27th minute for St Johnstone to open the scoring was another surprise. Enjoying success in particular down Thistle’s left hand side the Thistle goal had been under pressure from St Johnstone from the very early stages of the game. They had the ball in the net in the 11th minute, although the flag had long since gone up for offside, Paul Gallacher was forced into tipping a long range effort over his crossbar and Stephen O’Donnell had to get an important touch to a Lee Croft as St Johnstone dominated. The goal when it came arrived after Thistle lost possession of the ball in the middle of the St Johnstone half. On the counter attack St Johnstone opened up the Thistle defence with alarming ease with the result that Stevie May was able to steer the ball home from 8 yards out. Thistle seemed to liven up a bit after the loss of that goal and there was the odd flurry of activity in and around the St Johnstone goal between then and half-time. Kallum Higginbotham tried to find the far corner of the net with a free kick from the left hand side and wasn’t too far off target with it. The ball was whipped off the toes of a lively looking Chris Erskine in the 31st minute just as he was lining up to shoot and closest of all, Lyle Taylor tested Banks with a free kick from 30 yards out. If the first half had belonged to St Johnstone then the second 45 minutes were Thistle’s but only too rarely was the St Johnstone goal under any serious and sustained pressure. An excellent first touch from Chris Erskine in the 48th minute saw him fine some space inside the St Johnstone box but his cross was blocked and a minute later Gary Fraser saw a well struck effort held by Banks. This was Thistle’s best spell in the game thus far and Lyle Taylor was able to connect with a Higginbotham cross but he couldn’t make clean contact with the ball and his effort spun wide of goal. Although their attacks weren’t as frequent St Johnstone remained a threat and just past the hour mark a May header slipped just wide of Gallacher’s left hand post. It was Thistle though that were doing the bulk of the pressing and with 11 minutes remaining Chris Erskine shot narrowly wide after Kris Doolan, on as a sub, touched the ball back to him. Erskine, Doolan and Taylor were linking up well and an acrobatic effort from Erskine went over the bar after the three players had combined at the edge of the St Johnstone box. Doolan too came close with an effort that rolled across the six yard box and wide of Banks’ right hand post. It was already looking by this stage as if this wouldn’t be Thistle’s night and their last chance only served to emphasise that point with Jordan McMillan’s driven cross from the left spinning off a St Johnstone defender with the ball, when it really could have gone anywhere, going wide of goal for an unproductive Thistle corner.

ptfc.co.uk

advertisement

.