The Thistle Archive

It had been nearly three years since Elliott last netted – November 8, 2014 – but he came up trumps three minutes from time. Stranraer failed to clear Neil McLaughlin’s ball into the box and he pounced to drive a low left foot shot past Blair Currie. It was relief as much as celebration for boss Alan Archibald who knows his side were not at their best. Other than a Stevie Lawless free-kick which was pawed away by Currie in 17 minutes, Thistle had not cutting edge in the first half. They had more chances after the break, especially after Kris Doolan came on. He had a shot blocked in 54 minutes while Chris Erskine missed two chances and Ryan Edwards came close. Then Elliott popped up with his priceless goal that takes Thistle into the draw. Although they defended for most of the game, Stranraer had a couple of decent chances of their own with Stephen Okoh heading over just before the break and Tomas Cerny spilling a Jamie Hamill shot in 62 minutes.

A relieved Alan Archibald said:

Were just glad to be through. We did what we had to do, – we won the game – even if we made heavy work of it. There have been a few surprises in this competition and big teams have lost games but we have got through so we will take the positives from it. Credit to Stranraer, I thought they were very good in their shape and their structure. But I was disappointed we didn’t pose them enough problems. In the first half we were very pedestrian and our players seemed to take an extra touch rather than playing an early penetrative pass which we should have been doing. The second half was better because we played at a higher tempo and we got our full backs higher up the pitch. It’s not easy to break teams down but eventually we got the goal. We were concerned it wouldn’t come but we just had to find a way to win. Thankfully Neil came on and played a great ball into the box and we got the break from it. It’s not always going to click among the front four. Sometime the one-touch, two-touch won’t work and you need to be a wee bit uglier and just put balls in the box and make teams defend. That’s the way it happened for the goal so we have to recognise that. We’re not seeded so hopefully the draw is kind but we were seeded last year and went out to Dundee United so maybe it doesn’t matter.

Proud boss Stevie Farrell said:

I thought the players were great. I thought we restricted them to long range efforts at goal. We created some good chances and maybe if we had taken one of them it would have been a different day.

The Scottish Sun

With special thanks to the original video source:
Conor Spence

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ANOTHER UNBEATEN GROUP STAGE FOR THE JAGS

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