The Thistle Archive

Two goals from new signing Olly Lee helped Hearts to their third successive pre-season win in the Cowdenbeath sunshine. The Englishman hit a 25-yard effort and a low angled finish in the 3-1 win over Partick Thistle, which started with another new arrival, Ben Garuccio, claiming his first Hearts goal. He hit a 25-yarder of his own inside two minutes before Thomas O'Ware headed Thistle level near the break. Lee's two goals came in the second half as the midfielder showcased his scoring threat from the middle of the field.

Hearts beat Arbroath last Tuesday and Dumbarton on Saturday and are gaining momentum ahead of their Betfed League Cup campaign later this month. They took merely two minutes to score in Fife after a high-tempo start to the match. Left wing-back Garuccio ambled forward to clip a delightful 25-yard effort over the Partick goalkeeper Aaron Lennox and high into the net. Thistle gradually began asserting themselves and restored parity seven minutes before half-time. Midfielder Craig Slater whipped a free-kick from the left flank into the penalty area, where centre-back O'Ware was on the run to glance the ball into the net. On 55 minutes, Hearts' second did arrive. Lee controlled a loose ball 25 yards out and angled a beautiful finish high into the top corner. Lee made certain of victory with an angled left-footed shot with 13 minutes remaining.

Edinburgh Evening News

ptfc.co.uk

We weren't expecting the pitch to be so bad and it was quite badly rutted, but I'm delighted, because it turned it into more of a real game… we've played a lot of games at training grounds and it becomes a bit of a training exercise when the ball is passed side to side, but that was more real today, and there's a lot of positives to take from it. We had a lot of creativity on the pitch today and good footballers with good technique. I thought when we got into the final third, we nicked the ball off them a lot, but our final ball was really disappointing, if I was being really critical. [90 minutes from Stuart Bannigan, that's positive?] It's massive - if we had 2 or 3 Stuart Bannigan's we wouldn't have got relegated last year, without a shadow of a doubt and just having him back - his infectious personality, he's infectious on the pitch, he's infectious on the training ground, the way he goes about his business, so delighted for him getting that 90 minutes… it's fantastic having him back on the field.

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