Hopeless Unbeliever

We're one of the best teams in the league at converting corners. Strange times.

Hard to say definitively from those highlights, but he looks a little offside for the first goal but I'd say he's in line with Booth for the second. Also, as above, how are Motherwell allowed to show these highlights already?

£26 for adults, you can get them on the ptfc tickets site. Sold around 120 apparently.

I completely agree with you on Taylor, but I think it's only one Scotland player that qualifies via the grandparent rule, James Morrison.

This is definitely worth a watch then.

On the basis of anecdotal, made up stats, in any given game the ball is kicked away in a needless manner maybe 10 times or more. I would guess there is on average less than 1 yellow card per game for kicking the ball away. Taylor made a calculated gamble by kicking the ball away in a needless but not excessive manner. His misfortune was that he was picked up on it, but the action is hardly worthy of criticism.

Not sure this deserves its own thread but I think James deserves the recognition. Gets a fair amount of stick but his positional sense, ability to win the ball back and work rate is sensational. Our record in games Craigen has started this season is P16 W6 D5 L5 Pts 23. Without him its P14 W3 D2 L9 Pts 11. A very underrated player in my opinion.

Due to a run of bad luck with other commitments, I've missed more home games this year than in my 15+ years of being a season ticket holder. Next year the chances are I won't miss nearly as many games, but probably still enough to make a season ticket not a 'value investment.' Not many of us make it as a value investment, but to see it quite so constantly devalued by the club in situations like this pushes me further away from purchasing a season ticket again next season. I've lost count of how many such offers there have been this season. The worst part is they'll probably still hardly get anyone through the door for hospitality, make next to nothing on the deal and just alienate a few more of their season ticket holders. I'm all for new initiatives, but going to Firhill is a force of habit. Analysed objectively from a value for money standpoint it doesn't make sense as a way to spend your Saturday afternoon a lot of the time. The constant stream of such initiatives seem to serve only to encourage season ticket holders to assess their purchase in just such a way. Correspondingly, there is a complete dearth of offers being made to season ticket holders (despite the transparent attempt to market this as a 'season ticket holder offer') which only adds to the feeling of being fleeced. We don't ask for value for money when we buy a Thistle season ticket, but we do ask not to feel like we're having the piss taken out of us. They'd probably charge us for that too.

He got a move to Scunthorpe by playing well for us last season, if he gets a different move down south following this season it will be because he's done it again, so I'll be more than happy.

Yeah, Hardie came off the bench to score from an Andy Gibson cross (just before or after Gibson scored away to Dundee in the Cup) and ran over to give Lambie the GIRUY for having him on the bench in the first place. Think Hardie did that a few times that season. Arthur also saved a penalty (anyone able to give us Kenny's in game penalty record, always felt pretty confident in him).

Next three games are huge for our season. Six points minimum.

I have nothing whatsoever against McNamara or anything he's done since he's gone to United, that's life. I do however find it difficult to understand people who are desperate to stick up for McNamara at the same time as doing down Archibald. It was noticeable this week that McNamara was saying United's away form will prevent them from challenging for the league. Plus ca change.

Game off.

I make it 1 in 25,251. (2/3)^25 no?

Some seriously embarrassing posts in here this evening. Dundee created almost nothing the entire game. Balatoni failed to deal with a long ball effectively and even then it was a freak own goal. I would agree that Stevenson should not have gone off. Higginbotham didn't have his best game but it was his quick thinking and combining with Stevenson that set up the goal, he played a great through ball for Craigen's first half chance and picked Craigen out excellently for his second half chance. If that's contributing nothing I'll take that every week from him! Nobody is saying Archibald is completely blameless, I didn't agree with his substitutions and lack thereof at times today, but Hartley made his first change ten minutes into the second half and then we scored soon after. Archie would have got slated for that too if the tables were turned. As I say Dundee were not creating chances, and we had 5+ excellent chances to finish the game, you can't blame Archie for some poor finishing. I thought we played very well in the second half against a pretty decent Dundee side. Oh and those two Gary Fraser passes in the second half, unbelievable. Edited to add: anyone that cannot see serious improvement under Archibald is utterly clueless.

Was sad to see him punted by Ayr tonight. Probably the single most important Jags player in my 20+ years watching Thistle, it doesn't bear thinking about where we might have been had Campbell not chanced upon him. I know there's not much room for sentimentality in football etc and we probably don't have the spaces anyway, but if he were to turn up at Firhill again one day I'd be very happy.

My problem with Sportscene is situations like last week. It's not unreasonable to assume that there's a few armchair fans out there who haven't made it along to Firhill much this season. Hearing our game described as a turkey and constantly being talked down isn't going to do much to get these people back to the games. Barry Hearn was spot on, we have a terrible tendency to talk down the game here. Half the games in the English Premiership are just as dull to watch but Sky and the Premier League have done one of the greatest marketing jobs in history (second only to whoever convinced people that they needed to eat popcorn in the cinema).

Great effort. I think I'd vote for the Fraser one regardless, it's just such a clean strike, and I can't separate the goal from the match which is perhaps unfair. I'd have had this one in from the Ross County game as one of my top 5, and another Christie assist I think (commentator says Higginbotham) [Edit: can't get it to not embed the video, so skip to 4 minutes in here] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrP36YiGlMQ&t=4m0s

Think it was Canning, who is an absolute haddie. Clancy had a word with him afterwards but declined to book him surprisingly. To be fair to the ref he could have blown for a foul, so did well to play the advantage.

Don't really have a problem with Bo'ness and Spartans getting a bit of extra coverage, that's what this stage of the cup is about. Giving Dundee v Aberdeen about 5 times as much coverage as our game after it had been on live at lunchtime on the other hand is pretty poor.

I think Gallacher could have done a bit better with the ball, but he can't move across to deal with it until it's past Goodwillie. He was criticised in the other thread I think for not playing to the whistle, but playing to the whistle is exactly what he was doing, he can't move across to deal with the ball easily until he's sure Goodwillie isn't going to touch it, he can't rely on the linesman getting the decision right (even if it was clear cut). Even under the new interpretation of the law I think there was sufficient movement from Goodwillie to constitute offside and we were unlucky. Agree with the above point that Fraser was clearly not ready for 90 minutes, he was gubbed after one sprint early on in the second half supporting someone (Lawless?) but he is so important to our play that even half fit yesterday he improved the team. His long range passing was excellent and we need that to break up the predictability of a lot of our play. I think yesterday may be the last time for a while that we see Craigen and Elliott both starting together, against a team like Aberdeen they just don't offer enough ability to hold the ball up in the final third of the pitch or any genuine attacking threat. Coupled with Doolan getting little change from the giant centre halves and Lawless being tiny, we were really struggling to maintain any meaningful possession in the final third. Finally, I think Aberdeen are a better team than people are making out. Once they go ahead they are hard to break down, strong physically and retain the ball well. They will finish second in the league this season I reckon and certainly weren't 'there for the taking.' I still think we weren't great, although we improved in the second half and could have snuck a point, but I don't think we should be too disheartened by that performance. This side really should have enough to stay clear of the bottom two.

I would think DP is referencing in particular the incredible unbeaten run we had with Welsh in the side. There is no doubt that all three of those players deserve a huge amount of credit for that season and I wouldn't necessarily agree with singling any one of them out, but if we are, I think you can make as good a case for Welsh as any. On a related note, it really underlines what a great job Archibald did last season, he had to re-invent a midfield that was (with the benefit of hindsight) probably the most SPL ready area of our team, and has done so well enough that even after losing arguably our best midfielder half way through last season, our current midfield remains the strongest area of the team (and for me probably the strongest central midfield in the lower half or even 2/3 of the SPL).

Agreed on both points (although I wanted Doolan to start beforehand). The second free kick was better than the first, if someone can get the ball over the wall with pace almost any goalkeeper in the world is going to struggle with that. I've not seen any replays but wonder if our wall could have done more to get in the way of them as they must have taken a fairly low trajectory.

I'll pledge £20. Only risk is people falling through on the cash and leaving Willjag in the lurch. I'd vote for sponsoring Sean Welsh's home top first.