The Thistle Archive

Media report

Alasdair Lamont, 15-Oct-2016, bbc.com

Partick Thistle moved off the bottom of the Scottish Premiership, despite being pegged back by Hamilton Academical at Firhill. Accies went ahead through Massimo Donati's header but Ryan Edwards' strike levelled matters. The hosts were on course for only their second league win of the season until Eamonn Brophy fired Hamilton's equaliser late on. The result extends both sides' winless runs - Thistle's to eight games and Accies' to five. However, Dundee slip below the Jags following defeat at Hearts. Hamilton are two points ahead of the bottom two. Both will be frustrated at surrendering leads - Accies have now scored the opening goal in eight of their nine league games and yet they only have one win to show for it. Alan Archibald's side are now unbeaten in their last nine meetings with Accies, but in truth the result is not one that suits either club.

Offensively, Accies are not doing much wrong. They created numerous clear-cut opportunities as they controlled the opening period - Rakish Bingham and Grant Gillespie both went close - and finally got the goal their play deserved. After Ryan Scully had brilliantly kept out Alex D'Acol's header, Donati powered home Ali Crawford's resultant corner. Both Bingham and D'Acol were denied again before the break, but Accies were undone by defensive failings, which have infuriated their player-manager Martin Canning in recent weeks. He has bemoaned their inability to see games out and will feel both of Thistle's first-half goals were entirely preventable, each coming as Accies failed to stop crosses from the flanks. Credit has to go to Thistle though. They may not have created as many openings as their opponents, but were more ruthless in front of goal as Edwards capitalised on an unkind ricochet inside the six-yard box and Lindsay rose unchallenged to head past Gary Woods. They might have won the match as Christie Elliott and Callum Booth pulled good saves out of Woods. And though they called Woods into action twice more after Brophy's late shot, the outcome was probably a fair one.

Reaction

Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald (speaking to the BBC):

We started the second half really brightly and had two great chances. If we put them to bed it might have taken the wind out of Hamilton but credit to them, they keep on going and defensively it's awful from us. Good, attacking displays from both teams. I think defensively there were too many chances in the game and that's what's killing us at the moment - not putting the game to bed at the right times and then we can't see the game out. There's a lot of positives, a lot of good stuff going forward, we just need to find that strong mindset to see games out. We've not got that just now. We've let the lead slip again and that's been the last two home games.

Hamilton Academical player-manager Martin Canning (speaking to the BBC):

We probably slightly shaded it but away from home, 2-1 down late in the game we'll take the point. We missed too many opportunities but you could say the same about Thistle so maybe over the piece it's a fair result but I thought for large spells we controlled the game. Performance-wise I'm relatively pleased but we've got to be ruthless defensively. It's going to be a tough, long season because there's so little between fifth or sixth in the league down to 12th that it's one moment in the game where you put the ball in the back of the net or stop an opportunity and at the moment we're not picking up enough three points.

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DOUBLE MILESTONE DAY

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