Firing Blanks

VBL looks at Thistle's recent scoring drought, and makes some suggestions about how to fix it.

Thistle have only scored one goal in 2012 so far. So far this season, we have failed to score in 41% of the games we have played. Our leading scorer, Paul Cairney, is a midfielder. The league’s top scorer last season, Kris Doolan, for all his endeavour this year has only found the net 6 times.

Just call me Michael Cox. Stats galore. The fact of the matter is that Thistle’s efforts this season are being let down by misfiring strikers. At various points in their Thistle careers, Tommy Stewart and Christie Elliot have looked dangerous. However, one of these players has been looking seriously short of match fitness recently, and the other has had his raw talent knocked out of him by the rigours of full-time football.

I would love to see Stewart doing what he does best by playing off of a front man and hitting shots from distance. In this league, with the current standard of pitches, the ball could bobble in front of the goalkeeper, could take a fortunate deflection or even go flying into the roof of the net. Tommy Stewart seems to be trying too hard. If he was that good, he wouldn’t be at Thistle.

Christie Elliot is as raw as they come, and that is not a criticism. His enthusiasm for the game was clear to see when he first arrived at Firhill. It was refreshing to see a player receive the ball and drive directly at goal. He was rewarded with a handful of goals, which have since dried up. Similarly to Stewart, he needs to remember why he was brought to this club. His performance on Saturday against a poor Morton side was reminiscent of the old Christie, although his positioning behind Doolan made it difficult for him to get into decent scoring positions.

When Liam Buchanan left, Kris Doolan was asked to step up and become the number one striker at Firhill. He achieved his target last season. This year, Doolan has scored some tremendous goals, and has consistently been one of the hardest working players in the squad. He has, however, perhaps suffered from the fact that he has not had a regular striking partner alongside him. This problem may allow Jackie McNamara to experiment with a different starting formation, playing Doolan as a lone striker with two wide men in a five man midfield. Although a 4-5-1 formation suggests negative, Gus McPherson-esque football, it would allow our best players, Cairney, Rowson and Paton, to find stability in the midfield and allow creative players such as Erskine and, possibly, Naismith to provide the chances and back up for Doolan. Cairney, as one of the three central midfielders, could also provide some back up for the lone striker and chip in the odd goal or two.

These are simply my thoughts, and I hope that they open up a discussion about McNamara’s options. For me, it is better to consider what we can do with what we have. We have the personnel to make changes, which suggests that McNamara is well aware of the need to change the dynamics of the team in the middle of a game. We have a potentially excellent manager at Firhill who needs time. He has a very young squad at his disposal, some of whom will be low on confidence at the moment. He’s got a tough job getting the likes of Elliot and Stewart back to where they were, but I think he can do it. It’s our job as supporters to help the team out. We can make our own suggestions about what McNamara can do, as I have just done, but let’s keep it positive and realistic. The club have no money, and Gerry Britton can’t play anymore. Let’s give these boys all we can, and hopefully they’ll repay us with goals.

VBL

A visitor's view...

We, at the Jagscast, have been lucky enough to be able to publish this article on our site. Andy Hudson has traveled the world in search of football. He has taken in games in numerous countries and written a bit about them for his excellent website http://ganninaway.wordpress.com/. He need travel no more, however, as he has now experienced the greatest team of them all*. Partick Thistle.

We enjoyed his article. We hope you do too.

Firhill
Saturday 27 August 2011
Scottish League Division 1
Partick Thistle 2 Queen of the South 1

“What was all that then? What? That. That was Glasgow.”

Edwin Morgan.

Travelling home on the Sunday afternoon train I had to remember the words of Scotland’s first Poet Laureate, Edwin Morgan. The combination of a late night out on Friday and an early Saturday morning train, followed by a day in the pub with friends had left me feeling rather fragile; actually, it left me feeling broken. From coffee and then Guinness in Òran Mór, where we were squeezed into the corner of a bench by a group of models having their make-up applied ahead of an assignment; to beers in Coopers and meeting up with the Thistle lads, Colin, Niall and Jonathan; to Firhill and the match; back to Coopers for post-match ales; to outdoor drinking at Jinty McGinty’s; to Tennent’s Bar for a portion of the evening; to somewhere else – Glasgow had defeated me. That football city which Daniel Defoe had claimed as being “the cleanest and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain,London excepted” had once again bested me. But this isn’t about the travel or the beer or even something conventionally beautiful; this about football.

For Glasgow to truly be a football city, which it is in my opinion, then the surface beyond Celtic and Rangers has to be scratched to uncover something more. And what comes after the Old Firm? That’ll be Partick Thistle, formed four years after Rangers and twelve years earlier than Celtic. While the Old Firm have celebrated success-upon-success, their neighbours, who moved from the Partick area of Glasgow to Firhill, a part of Maryhill, in 1909, have rarely scaled such heights. A 1921 Scottish Cup victory over Rangers and a 1971 League Cup victory over Celtic aside, the past has been anything but golden. But where’s the fun in expecting titles and cups year-after-year?

The fantastic Main Stand, opened in 1927, now stands empty, testament to spiralling operating and stewarding costs. Away fans occasionally sit in the North Stand, a structure that hints at certain ineptitude of the SFA. When the stand was opened in 2002 it was required so that ground could reach the 10,000 seater mark required for promotion to the SPL. That figure was only required for a short period of time, dropped down to a 6,000 seater capacity in 2005. Thistle had committed their eggs into that financial basket and when they were relegated in 2004, with Inverness taking their place after being allowed to groundshare with Aberdeen and thus reach the 10,000 capacity needed (this being only two years after Falkirk attempted to groundshare in order to take promotion to the SPL; a move which was blocked by the SFA), Thistle started to plummet. After spending much of the 1980s and 1990s close to bankruptcy, Thistle were once again left cashless, only this time it was largely to do with a stand that should never have been needed and is rarely full.

Following a match-saving cameo on his debut, Christie Elliott, recently signed from Whitley Bay, who themselves had plucked him from Jarrow FC and the Wearside League only last season, was handed his first start of his professional career. His former manager at Whitley Bay, Ian Chandler, had earlier told me that Christie “could be as good as he wants to be. He could easily play in the [English] Championship; he’s very, very quick; direct; two great feet. He’ll be huge in Scotland”. And after struggling to adjust to the pace of an error strewn game, it was Elliott who proved to be the difference for Partick once again. With five minutes remaining, and the crowd of just over 2,000 expecting the draw, a David Rowson cross was played back into the path of Elliott who stroked the ball into the bottom corner to lift The Jags three points clear of The Doonhamers at the bottom of the table.

Elliott had also played a part in the opening goal when, after 19 minutes, he chased Lee Robinson, the visiting ‘keeper, down and deflected the ball into the path of Kris Doolan to score. The visitors responded on the hour mark with their equaliser, which owed more to an error by the home ‘keeper, Scott Fox, than the quality of play. A long cross was played to the edge of the box and Fox was nowhere near collecting the ball when Mark Campbell flicked the ball into the net. Luckily the late goal by the lad who was playing English Level 11 football only months ago, made the difference in this Scottish First Division match.

Andy Hudson
http://ganninaway.wordpress.com/


*Might not be true.