Kris Doolan has urged his Partick Thistle players to maintain their momentum by securing a positive result away to Inverness tomorrow night.
Last weekend’s goalless draw at home to Dundee resulted in the gap between the Jags and league leaders Queen’s Park stretching to nine points with seven games of the regular season left to play, and so the prospect of Thistle going on to clinch the title is looking increasingly remote.
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Thistle are, however, the form team in the division since Doolan replaced Ian McCall last month. The club legend remains unbeaten in his six games in charge, winning three and drawing three, while the team has shipped a solitary goal in that time.
That defensive resilience gives Doolan confidence as we enter the business end of the campaign. All three of the draws that the 37-year-old has presided over have ended goalless and although he accepts that a few more goals would not go amiss, he believes it is only a matter of time before Thistle’s forward-thinking players rediscover their mojo.
“I think every team will be wanting momentum,” he said. “Every team in the Championship that has something to play for will be looking for momentum and we already have it, which is a big boost for us.
“It’s about building on it and continuing that good run. It has been great in the last six games: we’re unbeaten, we have only conceded one goal, so there is a lot there to be proud of. And now it is about adding to that and between now and the end of the season there is a lot that will change.
“We know teams will drop points. It is up to us look after ourselves and look after our own fixtures, which we intend to do. But it’s great that we have gone six games so far and only conceded one goal. That gives us that positivity that we can build on, and we know we have got players in the squad who can create and score goals well.”
The men from Maryhill will make the journey to the Highlands in reasonably good shape, with one or two notable exceptions. Aaron Muirhead, injured in the 0-0 draw at Cappielow earlier in the month, is still recuperating and won’t be part of the squad. Cammy Smith has been back in full training this week and is likely to be included on the bench, while left-back Harry Milne, who missed Saturday’s goalless draw with Dundee, is back in the team after suffering from a bout of flu.
“It will be another tough game, like everywhere,” Doolan said of tomorrow’s encounter. “Especially away from home, we know that Inverness is a difficult place to go to.
“They have got good players, they like to pass the ball and they have obviously got guys like Billy Mckay who have been around for a long time and scored plenty of goals. So they carry a threat and for us it is about trying to stop those threats and put our better players on to Inverness and try to impose ourselves on the game.
“Whether we’re at home or away, we want to impose ourselves on the game because we have got good enough players who can hopefully go there and do that. But we’re under no illusions how difficult it will be.
“Billy Dodds is a terrific manager up there, he’s been doing it for a number of years so we have got every bit of respect for them. But it’s about us, we look after ourselves and hopefully we do enough to come away with a good result.”
Doolan added: “I think the cup run is something that is testament to them. They have obviously gone a difficult route in terms of coming back in [Queen’s Park knocked them out earlier in the competition but Inverness were awarded a 3-0 walkover win after the Spiders fielded an ineligible player] but they have put out two Premiership teams [Kilmarnock and Livingston].
“They have come up against tough challenges and rose to those challenges so that is why we know it won’t be an easy game. We know that they can raise their game when they have to and we have to be ready for that because they have already shown so far that they can mix it with the Premiership teams and come out on top.”
