 Media report |
Partick Thistle had to settle for a point today at The Wyre Stadium at Firhill, following an attritional 0-0 draw with Arbroath in the Scottish Championship. There were three changes to the side that faced Dunfermline on Tuesday. Luke McBeth, Ts’oanelo Lets’osa and Alex Samuel all started, with Ben Stanway and Logan Chalmers dropping to the bench. Ben McPherson narrowly missed making the matchday squad after a knock picked up in Tuesday’s game, but the bench was bolstered by the inclusion of versatile defender Ethan Ingram, who arrived on loan from Dundee yesterday.
The first twenty minutes were a cagey affair, with very little happening to get the crowd going. The first opportunity of the game fell Arbroath’s way on nine minutes. Harry Cochrane found himself in space, but his limp effort was no trouble for Josh Clarke in the Thistle goal. The Jags dominated the ball but did little with it as the Arbroath backline marshalled the Thistle attack well. The home side were patient, if anything too patient, moving the ball around the park without much incision. Mark Wilson’s men would get their first opportunity on 19 minutes, A tidy pass from Lets’osa allowed Watt to carve an opening out. However, with an Arbroath defender breathing down his neck, Watt was only able to poke a shot at goal that was easily intercepted by Aidan McAdams in the Arbroath net. The match progressed with a scarcity of incident but the last fifteen minutes of the opening half represented a particularly barren spell, with the only notable moments being a pair of Arbroath bookings. First, Gavin Reilly was booked on 39 minutes, for a tug on Fitzpatrick in midfield, before Aidan Nesbitt was cautioned for a tackle on O’Reilly a minute before the break. The resultant free kick was indicative of the half as a whole, with Reading’s free kick no danger to McAdams, who made a confident catch to bring what had been a cerebral first half to an end.
Mark Wilson switched things up at half-time, moving to a back four with McBeth and Crawford coming off to be replaced by Chalmers and debutant Ingram. After a first half for the purists, Arbroath continued where they left off, with Aaron Muirhead entering the book almost immediately from the restart. The war of attrition rumbled on, with Nesbitt getting the only chance of note in the first fifteen minutes of the second half, drilling a shot wide on the 55 minute mark – a rare sight of goal. Things livened up on the hour, though, when Thistle had a man sent off. Dan O’Reilly slid in on Harry Cochrane just outside the Thistle box and was adjudged to have caught the former Hearts man with referee Sean Murdoch giving him his marching orders. Mark Wilson turned to his bench immediately following the sending off, with Ben Stanway and Cale Loughery coming on for Ts’oanelo Lets’osa and Paddy Reading, as Thistle morphed into a 3-4-2 formation. Bizarrely, the red card was the wake up call Thistle needed, as they started to play with urgency, getting themselves forward more frequently. On 68 minutes, Aidan Fitzpatrick was teed up by a lovely pass from Ben Stanway which sent him through on goal, looking set to open the scoring. Unfortunately, Fitzpatrick took a touch before dragging his effort wide from about 15 yards out via a deflection.
Arbroath too seemed to be roused from their slumber by the sending off, as the game became more fluid, with both teams smelling blood. A Red Lichties corner on 75 minutes found Tam O’Brien dashing across the front post area and the visiting skipper’s header from eight yards out forced Josh Clarke into a sharp stop. Five minutes later, Clarke was the hero once again, getting a hand to Findlay Marshall’s close-range effort and tipping what looked to be a certain goal over the bar. Arbroath were also reduced to 10 men on 85 minutes, when Tam O’Brien pulled down the onrushing Samuel as he tried to collect a through ball on the edge of the area. The resultant free kick was taken by Oisin Smyth; his arcing shot rattling the woodwork after beating the keeper. Thistle ramped up the intensity as it looked like a winner might finally be in the offing. The ball found its way back to Smyth two minutes into injury time, but for the second time in quick succession, he bruised the crossbar with a curling shot as the spoils were shared. With St Johnstone’s 3-1 victory over Ayr, the gap at the top of the table has been stretched to five points, with nine games left. The Jags now have a break from the league, as they travel to Paisley next Sunday to take on St Mirren in the Scottish Cup Quarter-Finals.
 Reaction |
Thistle manager Mark Wilson spoke to
'The Thistle' 
:
It was a tough watch, no doubt about it. I think we can all agree on that. I mean usually here at Firhill, it’s pretty exciting stuff this season and we create a lot and we play at such a good tempo. Even the games where we’ve been behind, I’m going, ‘There’s loads to pick out of that’. The first half, I could pick hardly anything out of it. I mean, I don’t think we created anything, I can’t even remember them creating anything. So for you sitting watching that, it must have been brutal. Hence the fact we made a couple of changes. I decided to go with a shape, obviously 3-5-2, to start with, with Fitzy [Aidan Fitzpatrick] on that right-hand side, and it just wasn’t working. So that’s on me. We changed it to get Logan on the pitch and to get Fitzy a wee bit more attack-minded. And it didn’t really spark, if I’m honest, the way I kind of anticipated it would, until we got a man sent off - and I thought we were probably better. It was almost like there was a wee burst of urgency, that we’re really up against it here, and everybody felt a wee bit galvanised. But you want that from the start. I must admit, I think over the course of this season we have been that. Arbroath come here with a certain game plan, they’re hard to beat and hard to break down. And every time the ball goes out for a throw-in, it takes an eternity to throw it in, and that’s just the way they play. We have to be better at rising above that, and we sort of got dragged into that. We started taking an eternity to take free kicks and throw-ins, and I’m thinking, ‘What’s going on here?’. So we just needed to be better that today. But when we went down to ten men, it was almost like the tempo lifted, and funnily enough, we then created our best opening with Fitzy. Aidan probably should put it in, put it at the other side. But equally, at the other end, I said to the guys there that those games I’ve been in before. You’re down to ten men, you still don’t think there’s a threat, and bang, a sucker punch comes, and before you know it, you’re beat. And Josh [Clarke] pulls off an absolutely incredible save to keep us level. And then, of course, we’re so close with Oisin [Smyth] twice. So probably on the balance of play, a fair result, maybe.
Luke McBeth
former Jag
Kyle Turner
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