The Partick Thistle thread

[RandomGuy.]

Was the "Partick Thistle way of playing" comment in the actual statement or Ad Libs? I can't remember as they seemed identical

If it's the real one, then there's a real chance your board will be sucked in by Yogis "philosophy"

[Jacksgranda]

I'm surprised Thistle are struggling so much, I expected to see them at the other end of the table. What's the problem?

[GrahamJags]

Of course it’s sad that Archie has now gone, and the manner in which it has all unfolded, however he has been given 6-12 months more leeway from a shitebag board than anyone else would have gotten. We have been utterly rancid since top 6 was confirmed and his recruitment (particularly in the last 3 transfer windows) has been abysmal.

Can’t see where he’ll end up after this, which is a shame, as he is a lovely guy and clearly works hard. Perhaps will need to drop a division and start from there, as I can’t see any Championship sides taking a punt on him at the moment. Whoever gets him will no doubt get Christie Elliott, Gary Fraser and Div Wilson signed straight away though.

[Savage Henry]

5 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

I'm surprised Thistle are struggling so much, I expected to see them at the other end of the table. What's the problem?

They were pretty awful towards the tail end of last season, and Livingston strolled the playoffs.  Removing Lawless and  Cerny from that team, couple it with a manager out of ideas and an unwillingness  to play the one decent prospect, and you're left with a whole pile of meh.

[Jacksgranda]

2 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

They were pretty awful towards the tail end of last season, and Livingston strolled the playoffs.  Removing Lawless and  Cerny from that team, couple it with a manager out of ideas and an unwillingness  to play the one decent prospect, and you're left with a whole pile of meh.

Are you bad enough to go down again? 

[ayrmad]

7 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

Are you bad enough to go down again? 

They have next to no va va voom granda, anything is possible when that's not there.

[Savage Henry]

10 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

Are you bad enough to go down again? 

Best leave that for the Thistle fans to deliberate, but it'd be hard to be worse than Falkirk.

[jagfox]

13 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

They have next to no va va voom granda, anything is possible when that's not there.

Aye, Thierry Henry is off to Villa, Papa 

[Poet of the Macabre]

Ayr being so much better than anyone expected so far will be making several boards very nervous indeed. Falkirk are dreadful just now but they'll surely improve at some point and Alloa have a bit more quality and fight about them than Brechin.

Nobody is safe...

[ayrmad]

Before a ball was kicked I didn't think anyone was safe, I knew we were decent and I knew Goodwin wouldn't be surrendering 3 points easily to anyone, this is a very competitive league where everyone is going to get a few bloody noses along the way.

[Thistle_do_nicely]

2 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Was the "Partick Thistle way of playing" comment in the actual statement or Ad Libs? I can't remember as they seemed identical

If it's the real one, then there's a real chance your board will be sucked in by Yogis "philosophy"

the "returning to Partick Thistle way of playing" comment came after the relegation playoff and the statement where the club announced they were retaining Archibald.

I thought it might have meant that we had tried to emulate the way other clubs had set up and failed miserably so we'd need to go back to forming our own idendity rather than some kind of grandstanding about us being football purists.

Or (more likely) it was a platitude to try to sell season tickets at a low point for the club.

[Big Dan]

A management team of Ian McCall with Lawrence Shankland as his playing/assistant manager would tick a few boxes 

[Ludo*1]

What happened lads? I always viewed Archibald as a very good up and coming manager. He'd led you to the top 6 and it was a rare instance where a club hero is now doing a really good job in charge. 

Then it all went disastrously wrong. How did it come about?

[GrahamJags]

What happened lads? I always viewed Archibald as a very good up and coming manager. He'd led you to the top 6 and it was a rare instance where a club hero is now doing a really good job in charge. 
Then it all went disastrously wrong. How did it come about?

It was a stubbornness/inability to change, for me. Never really had a plan B when things weren’t working, and was loyal to permanently injured and/or off-form players for far too long and never really changed, despite all the platitudes in the summer that he’d learned his lessons.

[Thistle_do_nicely]

Page 911 and we've got a managerial emergency. Ha.

[Fuctifano]

55 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

What happened lads? I always viewed Archibald as a very good up and coming manager. He'd led you to the top 6 and it was a rare instance where a club hero is now doing a really good job in charge. 

Then it all went disastrously wrong. How did it come about?

Lots of things, to try and summarise:

The top 6 season was built on a solid defence- when Liam Lindsay left it fell apart, even if his direct replacements weren't the worst offenders, the likes of Keown, Devine , and Barton were hopeless. It was also based on taking points off the teams around us, as over the 5 seasons our records against the bigger teams was abysmal- half the time when we went to Ibrox or Pittodrie we were beaten before we kicked off. With Hibs replacing ICT that was basically another 3 games in the L column.

Recruitment at first glance looked decent (OK, apart from maybe Nitrianksy),  but we had a gaping hole in the middle of the pitch,  Osman got injured early on as did Bannigan, Gary Fraser I'm not sure was ever up to it. Our approach to this was to assume it would be fine when Osman came back from injury in January but he had just lost it totally (perhaps too much focus on shilling his hats) and by the end of the season he was benched. We also continued our habit of losing key late goals, we played you and Hamilton in back to back weeks, both times going 1-0 up and losing 2-1 with the winner coming in injury time. I know it's an "if your auntie had baws" scenario but two wins there and I think we're playing top division football this season.

Of course we had the safety net of the playoff but we were dreadful and while we're not the only team in the last 18 months to have underestimated Livi, I'm pretty sure  we did. Even after the first leg, the general feeling seemed to be we'd be fine on a bigger and better pitch, but we were worse.

This summer the recruitment did not look so good. We went into the season with one right back, who isn't even really a right back, and knowing he was suspended for the first game. We have instead signed 2 left backs to add to the one we already had. A collection of late window waifs and strays later, and our best players (potentially barring Coulibaly who hasn't played in 18 months) are still Doolan, Erskine, and Bannigan, who were all at the club when Archibald took over (tho he did of course re-sign Erskine).

The football was very predictable as well, last season we hardly played through the middle, some of those stats guys on twitter  showed we were conceding the most chances of any team from the middle of the pitch and pretty much everything  went down the wings.

Yesterday on the face of it seemed a strange game to end it, County are clearly favourites for the league but not only was it a first home league defeat, it showed the absolute gulf between the teams, they won without getting out of 2nd gear. Sad that it ended this way but it had long gone past the point it was tenable.

[Barney Rubble]

Good summary Fuctifano, to which I would add the inability to gain any positive consistency until after the September weekend in every year of Archie's tenure, this one included.

[Savage Henry]

30 minutes ago, Fuctifano said:

Lots of things, to try and summarise:

The top 6 season was built on a solid defence- when Liam Lindsay left it fell apart, even if his direct replacements weren't the worst offenders, the likes of Keown, Devine , and Barton were hopeless. It was also based on taking points off the teams around us, as over the 5 seasons our records against the bigger teams was abysmal- half the time when we went to Ibrox or Pittodrie we were beaten before we kicked off. With Hibs replacing ICT that was basically another 3 games in the L column.

Recruitment at first glance looked decent (OK, apart from maybe Nitrianksy),  but we had a gaping hole in the middle of the pitch,  Osman got injured early on as did Bannigan, Gary Fraser I'm not sure was ever up to it. Our approach to this was to assume it would be fine when Osman came back from injury in January but he had just lost it totally (perhaps too much focus on shilling his hats) and by the end of the season he was benched. We also continued our habit of losing key late goals, we played you and Hamilton in back to back weeks, both times going 1-0 up and losing 2-1 with the winner coming in injury time. I know it's an "if your auntie had baws" scenario but two wins there and I think we're playing top division football this season.

Of course we had the safety net of the playoff but we were dreadful and while we're not the only team in the last 18 months to have underestimated Livi, I'm pretty sure  we did. Even after the first leg, the general feeling seemed to be we'd be fine on a bigger and better pitch, but we were worse.

This summer the recruitment did not look so good. We went into the season with one right back, who isn't even really a right back, and knowing he was suspended for the first game. We have instead signed 2 left backs to add to the one we already had. A collection of late window waifs and strays later, and our best players (potentially barring Coulibaly who hasn't played in 18 months) are still Doolan, Erskine, and Bannigan, who were all at the club when Archibald took over (tho he did of course re-sign Erskine).

The football was very predictable as well, last season we hardly played through the middle, some of those stats guys on twitter  showed we were conceding the most chances of any team from the middle of the pitch and pretty much everything  went down the wings.

Yesterday on the face of it seemed a strange game to end it, County are clearly favourites for the league but not only was it a first home league defeat, it showed the absolute gulf between the teams, they won without getting out of 2nd gear. Sad that it ended this way but it had long gone past the point it was tenable.

Excellent post.  But no mention of Martin Woods?  

[Barney Rubble]

5 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

Excellent post.  But no mention of Martin Woods?  

Woods gets a bad rap - he was pretty decent when he was fit (signed as a free agent in October as I recall). With a full pre-season in front of him could indeed have got us that single point that would have saved us.

Watching Craig Slater this season, I can't help thinking he was the missing link in last season's squad.

[Midlife Crisis]

Woods hid for long periods during games, especially when we went behind. The gubbing at Dingwall was a prime example. Plus the fact he was average at best. Another desperate signing. His debut was a 3 minutes appearance from the bench, following which he was out injured for 3 weeks. Another wage thief from last season.

Edited October 7, 2018 by Midlife Crisis