Saturday, August 10
5.45pm
This afternoon’s game against Partick Thistle ended in a disappointing 1-1 draw. It’s going to be a long, hard season if we can’t beat teams like this at home, but at least we didn’t get beat, which seemed almost inevitable when Thistle took the lead with only 9 mins left.
We started the match with exactly the same team as last week, but sadly the performance didn’t match and the first-half was a bit of a non event with very few chances at either end. The closest we came to scoring was a McFadden free-kick which was well saved by the visitor’s goalkeeper. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the first 45mins was the performance of the referee, a certain Craig Thomson (no, I’ve never heard of him either but hopefully he’ll be back to refereeing Sunday League games next week). He seemed determined to spoil the game as much as possible by constantly blowing for needless free-kicks, and generally seemed to be completely out of his depth.
The second-half was a little better, and both sides enjoyed periods of domination. The Thistle goalkeeper pulled off another great save when he prevented an own goal, but clear cut chances were still few and far between at both ends. The game seemed to be heading for a 0-0 draw, but inside the last 10 mins Partick took the lead when Alex Burns (yes, HIM) headed home with the defence all at sea. The home support were fearing the worst at this point, but we were behind for only two minutes as James McFadden crossed for Stephen Pearson to head the ball into the back of the net.
I don’t think we can have too many complaints from today’s game as a point was probably all that we deserved. Partick got the draw that they came for, and we played into their hands at times by continually lumping high balls up the pitch towards Lehmann, who came off second best against their No 5. Let’s hope there were a few scouts watching Faddy today as he had a poor game and contributed very little to the match. He wasn’t the only one though, and in general there seemed to be a complete lack of ideas throughout the whole team. Terry Butcher tried changing to a 5-3-2 formation midway through the second half, but if anything it turned things in Partick’s favour. I get the awful feeling that the three other games between the sides this season will go a long way to deciding who goes down and who stays up.
Team (4-4-2): Woods, Ramsay, Corrigan Partridge, Hammell, MacDonald (Kinniburgh 56), Lasley, Leitch, Pearson, McFadden, Lehmann.
Subs not used: Dubourdeau, Fagan, Clarkson
Crowd: 5,788