One team in Glasgow Partick Thistle

On a soft and greasy pitch at Dens today, even in the warm up, the Thistle squad had a threadbare look about it with young Martin Robertson wearing 17, Mark Roberts listed as a sub but nowhere to be seen, and only 4 subs listed including Roberts and Robertson. A virus had seemingly struck. So Kane, wearing 10, started at right back, Brown Ferguson at left back and McCulloch and Boyd in the centre. Donnelly and Young occupied the wide midfield positions and McConalogue and Graham Gibson were up front.

After just 2 minutes Graham Gibson won a corner for Thistle which was cleared to the edge of the box where Young’s shot seemed to take at least one deflection before finding the back of the net. A fantastic start, however, things were about to deteriorate.

After 8 minutes Dundee carved out their first real chance with Lyle missing what was virtually an open goal. The makeshift Thistle team were further disturbed after 15 minutes when Donnelly picked up an injury and immediately signalled to the bench that he could not continue. McGoldrick was his replacement, who moved up front with McConalogue dropping into midfield.

After 21 minutes, Deasley struck en equaliser for Dundee. The ball was delightfully chipped into the box from the left and Deasley’s acrobatic effort looped over Kenny Arthur’s head and just under the bar from about 12 yards.

From this point on, Thistle repeatedly failed to clear their lines with all of the back four with the exception of Boyd being guilty of giving the ball away. With the Thistle central midfielders being missing in action, Thistle were under a great deal of pressure for a spell. It was a meaty encounter and McCulloch, Kane and Ferguson all limped away from challenges at various times in this ten minute spell.

Dundee’s pressure paid off after 34 minutes when Lyle had a great chance well saved by Kenny Arthur but Deasley was following up and made no mistake and gave Arthur no chance by tucking his finish just inside the post.

Thistle were playing poorly with the defence all over the place, the midfield anonymous and a total lack of presence from the little boys lost up front. Scott Boyd stepped forward and went on an attacking run, clearly frustrated by the lack of alternate options ahead of him. On the very odd occasion that Thistle ran at the Dundee defence, it looked equally disorganised as the Thistle one and there was hope if Thistle could just get some possession.

The referee, Dougie MacDonald, had been largely anonymous up until now but just before half time he made the first of what became a string of eccentric decisions (none of which affected the match outcome) booking Kane when his progress up the line after a good lay-off by McGoldrick had been blocked by a clear Dundee hand ball.

In the last action of the first half, Deasley should have had his hat-trick after McCulloch stood off him and let him advance to within ten yards of Arthur’s goal but Kenny made an easy save after a weak shot by the Dundee forward.

At the start of the second half, there was a glimpse of how McGoldrick’s pace could trouble the Dundee defence and it seemed that a sensible tactic would be knocking the ball into space behind the Dundee defence which was holding quite a high line. With things not always going his way, every Thistle fans favourite player-manager, began his dummy-spitting antics and seemed about to do more than square up to Brady after being brought down, a foul for which Brady received a yellow card.

With Graham Gibson losing the ball each and every time it came forward, Dundee made a quick break after 55 minutes and only a good save by Arthur denied Deasley his hat-trick as his curling shot from the edge of the box looked destined to creep inside Arthur’s right hand post until the Thistle keeper got his fingertips to the effort. By this stage it had become a fairly open game, albeit a poor one.

After an hour Roberts was introduced for McGoldrick, a substitution widely criticised among the Thistle support for two reasons. Firstly, Roberts was white as the proverbial sheet, and looked like he would be better served resting up for the 3 games in the next 10 days particularly with the injury to Donnelly. Secondly McGoldrick had looked much more likely to cause the Dundee defence a problem than Graham Gibson whose withdrawal was widely anticipated.

After 62 minutes, a hopeful ball into the Thistle box from the right found its way to Swankie whose shot seemed mis-hit but beat Arthur at his near post while the Dundee fans were clamouring for a soon-forgotten hand ball.

With 20 minutes to go, McConalogue made a good run into the box but was muscled off the ball. The clearance resulted ina throw-in to Thistle and after good interplay between Roberts and Young, a corner was won. McConalogue’s corner was met by the head of Boyd but he could not direct the header. This was to prove Thistle’s best chance of the second period until the dying seconds.

Then a bad afternoon turned worse when with quarter of an hour remaining Young was red carded when a yellow card the other way seemed a more appropriate decision. Young was very unlucky and his case was not helped by the actions of that well known model professional, Rae.

Dundee were now rampant and shots were raining in on Arthur’s goal from all ranges and all angles. In the next ten minutes, Dundee had 8 efforts on the Thistle goal without reply from Thistle. The debate raging behind the writer about the merits of the Thistle Board and whether it was a closed shop or not was of far more interest than what was happening on the park and was reminiscent of the arguments in the terraces I recall from the STJ era.

Kenny Arthur had a rush of blood to the head after 81 minutes and made an ill-advised venture from his box, but was lucky that having been beaten by the Dundee player, the Dundee player then stumbled allowing Arthur to win the ball back and clear it upfield with some relief that his misjudgement had not been more costly.

The Thistle support (that remained) had waited a long time for it but in the dying seconds of the match Graham Gibson finally won a meaningful header, and from his flick on, Roberts was set free for a one on one with the keeper but his shot from a tight angle was saved well by the Dundee keeper.

After three minutes of this encounter, ‘Can we play you every week?’ rang out from the away stand, after the final whistle a small but vocal group of the Thistle support did not hold back in expressing their view to the various scapegoats for the defeat (namely Dougie MacDonald, the Board, the players collectively, Graham Gibson, Alex Rae, Dick Campbell and Kenny Arthur). In truth, there were clearly mitigating circumstances but it was a below par performance from Thistle and with Roberts possibly under the weather for a few days, Young facing suspension and Donnelly out injured for who knows how long, it is difficult to see where the goals and creative spark will come from in the coming matches.

Man of the Match - Stephen McConalogue
Too many Thistle players under-performed today and at times there was a lack of spirit and passion (the sight of Graham Gibson smiling when he lost out yet another header was enraging for the cold Thistle support). Boyd played well at the back but the player who put in effort from start to finish and tried his heart out even in an unfamiliar position was Stephen McConalogue and he gets the nod for man of the match.

Thistle: Arthur 5, Ferguson 6, McCulloch 5, Brady 5, Boyd 6, B Gibson 5, G Gibson 3, Donnelly 5 (McGoldrick 16, (Roberts 66)), Young 5, Kane 5, McConalogue 6.
Unused subs; Tuffey, M Robertson

Dundee: Roy, Shields, Dixon, MacKenzie, Mann, Rae (Harris 78), Robertson, Lyle, Deasley (McDonald 78), Swankie (Campbell 63).
Unused subs; Forsyth, Johnson.