June has been a difficult month for everyone connected to Partick Thistle. Between the dramatic collapse up in Dingwall that ended the Jags’ dream of promotion, the club statement a few days later that laid bare the financial difficulties that the club have suffered and the departures of key players in the shape of Scott Tiffoney, Kyle Turner, Ross Docherty and Kevin Holt once their contracts expired, it hasn’t exactly been plain sailing for the cinch Championship outfit of late.
Kris Doolan, though, is raring to go once again as he assembles his squad for another crack at promotion in the upcoming season. The Thistle manager has already secured the services of Scott Robinson from Kilmarnock and Swansea City defender Wasiri Williams for the new campaign as he stamps his authority on the first team, and he expects to retain every other member of his squad.
Supporters could have been forgiven for thinking Thistle’s financial predicament could force the club to accept bids for its most talented players, but Doolan insists this is not the case. Brian Graham and Aidan Fitzpatrick – two in-demand players – each signed contract extensions this week, and money donated to the club from supporters’ group The Jags Foundation and a new stadium naming rights deal with Wyre has eased some of the financial pressure facing the Glasgow club.
“No one has told me to sell the best players,” Doolan said. “If we are to get better, the majority of the squad is still here and they want to be here. When you have a heart and desire to be somewhere and you are happy you play better. That’s what I want to build here.
“I want boys who want to come to work and enjoy training. That will continue and hopefully we can get off to a good start.
“I wasn’t privy to the financial side of things, I was tasked without helping the team on a day-to-day basis. Then I got the job permanently and then we did well to get to the play-off final.
“I was focused on that, there are other people to look after the finances. It is about what happens on the park for me.
“Naming the stadium, I know it helps my budget and it is a company who is backing the club as they want to be here. It is a three-year deal with potentially more and that says a lot to me and that’s the way us to be going forward.”
Tiffoney, Turner, Docherty and Holt have been crucial players for Thistle over the past couple of years and losing the quartet in one fell swoop is undoubtedly a blow, particularly with the latter duo moving to promotion rivals Dundee United.
“Of course, but that’s the nature of football,” Doolan said. “Every year you lose good players. Even if we had gone up we still might have lost them to other clubs. That’s just the way that football is.
“It’s an ever-changing business because people move on at the end of every season. We obviously want to keep those types of players but when other clubs wave a lot of money at them or there’s the opportunity to go into the Premiership, it’s difficult to compete with that.
“From our point of view we are lucky we have retained others. We have kept the crux of this team together and we will add quality to it.”
He continued: “Of course [the club’s financial problems played a part]. If you don’t have the same budget you can’t keep the same types of players. You can try your best.
“That’s what we’ve tried to do but when there’s restrictions on your budget and there are other, bigger multiplications of your budget, then again it’s a question you need to ask the players. It’s up to them.
“Ultimately we can put forward what we can put forward. Obviously it wasn’t enough to keep them but we move on. We will dust ourselves down, bring in quality players that will make us better and we will make them better too.
“Even with a smaller budget we still want that excitement. We have asked fans to step forward and help and they have. Every time they have been asked to help the club they have helped massively and it’s not been any different this time. That connection with the fans is still there and it will only get stronger.”
Thistle came within minutes of a return to the Premiership last season and with a smaller budget this term, the challenge will surely only become more difficult. It is one that Doolan is relishing, though.
“We know how difficult it is,” he added. “It’s not as if you come in and say, ‘we need to get promotion now’.
“We need to reassess, take stock and you look at the teams with bigger budgets that come into the league. Sometimes you can’t compete financially with those kinds of budgets but it’s up to us to find other ways to compete.
“We will do that. We will be competitive. We will be as strong as we can be and we will give it another go.
“That’s what a fresh season brings, a fresh start. We will lick our wounds and we will come back stronger. We won’t be dwelling on things. We will be ready to go on day one.”
