ALAN ARCHIBALD admits that Scott Tiffoney is a ‘major concern’ for Partick Thistle ahead of their final Championship fixture of the regular season at Somerset Park tonight.
The Jags head to Ayrshire knowing that only a defeat coupled with a Raith win over Kilmarnock and an eight-goal swing will deny them a place in the promotion play-offs.
Assistant manager Archibald reported that most of the squad are back in training and available for selection for tonight’s match against relegation-threatened Ayr United but Tiffoney – who was announced as one of four nominees for the PFA’s Championship player of the year award- will not be involved after being brought off at half-time during last Saturday’s 1-0 win over Dunfermline.
Once a place in the play-offs is mathematically confirmed, the Thistle coaching staff’s thoughts will turn to Inverness and how to reset the players ahead of the business end of the campaign.
“I think once we get there, there’s no doubt about it,” Archibald said. “We don’t want to count our chickens but if we do get there it will be a reset. Hopefully we will have everybody back fit.
“We had a torrid time there for about six weeks. At one point we had two kids on the bench away to Kilmarnock so we’re just looking to get everybody fit. That’s the aim.
“We had a couple missing on Saturday and wee Tiff had to come off at half-time. Hopefully we’ll have everybody ready and a full squad to pick from.
“Tiff came off at the weekend and he is a major concern for us just now. He has a problem with his back and his hamstring so we are trying to get to the bottom of that with him. He gave it a go on Saturday but his movement was limited. He’s very dynamic in the way that he moves and he couldn’t quite get into his rhythm so we had to take him off.
“Richard Foster is back, which is great. He has been out for four or five weeks now so it’s good to get him back. Kyle McAllister is back in the squad and that’s him nearly back to full fitness after hernia surgery.”
Getting over the line and securing a play-off spot will be Thistle’s primary goal this evening and as Archibald reflects on the campaign as a whole, he believes it has been a successful one. A title charge during the first half of the season had some supporters dreaming of back-to-back titles but even though it faltered during the springtime, the Thistle assistant takes encouragement from what he has seen from his team over the last year.
“We’re really looking forward to it,” Archibald said. “We are nearly over the line so we just need to get a positive result and that will be us in the play-offs, which will round off a successful season.
“Obviously we are disappointed that we tailed off but I still think that when you look back, after coming up last year, it’s still a successful season to be getting into the play-offs.
“The bigger picture is that we just want to get it done and then concentrate on the Tuesday night. That’s the big thing for us. We will be as professional as we can and we know that it’s an eight-goal swing and it would need a disaster for us not to be in the play-offs but it’s down to us. It’s in our own hands.
“We know Ayr and Dunfermline have a lot to play for as well at the bottom end of the table.”
It wasn’t so long ago that the Jags were mired in mid-table in League One and promotion to the second tier seemed a distant prospect. A strong end to the campaign saw Thistle overhaul an eight-point gap with Falkirk and return to the Championship at the first time of asking.
It’s not a period in the club’s history that will be particularly fondly recalled by those associated with the Maryhill club but there were some benefits, Archibald begrudgingly admits. The likes of Anton Dowds and Harry Milne caught the eye of the Firhill management team, and both have signed pre-contract agreements to play for Thistle next season.
“We have kept a close eye on them,” Archibald revealed. “Last year they stood out and they did fantastically well. Harry got a bad injury but he started off the season brilliantly. Big Anton started the season with a knock as well and I was surprised to see him go out on loan to Arbroath but he did brilliantly as well.
“They are two guys at a good age and the manager thinks he can develop them further. They are good prospects – they want to learn, they want to play full-time football and it’s brilliant for us.
“We watched Anton a number of times and I watched him at Falkirk as well. He has got a lot of quality and we think he can add a lot to the squad. I think he had other offers – probably better offers financially – but he felt this was the place he wanted to come and develop. Hopefully we get the best out of him and goals from him.
“That was one benefit of playing in League One last year. There is talent in the lower leagues, we know that, we signed a few. Some of the lads can play in League One comfortably and you heard Paul Hartley talking about Harry and how well he has done.
“We got in there early. I think it has been done for a while and the manager has kept it under wraps because Cove were going to clinch the league title. It’s just great to get it out there and we look forward to building a squad for next year, regardless of what league we are in.”
Archibald continued: “I’m only saying that [there was a silver lining to competing in League One] because we are out of it. About 13 months ago we were eight points behind Falkirk and look at them now. It just shows you how much of a success it has been and the job the manager has done over the last year.
“Somebody showed me it last month – the table from a year ago – and it made for good reading. We were well off the pace and we turned it around to get out the league. It’s a horrible league to get out of and it’s going to be even worse next year to get out of it.”
Now that Dowds and Milne have been snapped up and the close season edges closer, Archibald admits that manager Ian McCall has one eye on the next campaign. Supporters can expect to see a few ins and outs at Firhill this summer, Archibald says, but a radical overhaul of the playing squad is not on the cards.
“The manager wants to press on as much as he can,” Archibald said of McCall’s transfer plans. “A lot will depend on how much money we make in the play-offs and where we are going to be obviously, that will play a part in it.
“I think it is important to have a nucleus of a squad and go into the close season only adding three or four hopefully. That’s the plan. Ideally that’s what you want to do but it is never as easy as that. But that will be the plan for the future.”
One thing that is for certain is that there should be a dramatic improvement in the playing surface at Firhill next term. The club’s season-long groundshare with Queens Park has ravaged the turf and a statement released on Tuesday confirmed that the pitch will be renovated over the summer as the board ruled out the prospect of another groundsharing agreement.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the news led to a few sighs of relief within the dressing room.
Archibald concurs: “Without a shadow of a doubt. There has been a lot made of the pitch, we can’t get away from that. Our home record was really good up to a point there that coincided with the number of games and the pitch – a wee bit of everything.
“I think these decisions are made looking at finance and sometimes it goes well. Like all these things, there is a risk of back-to-back games and bad weather and for some reason, every time we had Saturday or Sunday games the weather was horrendous and it absolutely killed the pitch. Then there is no way back from that.
“Teams changed the way they played, there is no getting away from that. Dunfermline came on Saturday and left some of their better players out the team, Hamilton done it a few weeks ago as well because you can’t play in the middle of the pitch. There is no doubt about that.”
