Pars hope to make Glasgow hosts cop it
Friday, 22nd Oct 2021“We’ve got to work as hard as them and compete. I believe, if we go man for man, we’ve got more quality and better players, and hopefully that will come through on the day.”
Disruptions are expected to start in Glasgow from Saturday but Dunfermline Athletic is hoping that it’s not the UN Climate Change Summit but Partick Thistle’s free scoring football team that can be disturbed. The Pars English midfielder Dan Pybus is warning that the Jags can be a handful and although they have only won two of their last six matches they have scored ten times in those victories.
Partick Thistle strikers Brian Graham and Zak Rudden have scored nineteen times this season and Scott Tiffoney while providing five assists has also chipped in with three goals of his own. Dan acknowledged their threat:-
“Their two up top, Tiffoney is really playing well and they are effective at what they do. You have got to try to stop it at source and try to make them defend, and see how they like it. Hopefully we can do that but we’ve got to earn the right to play first of all.
“I would imagine they’ll come out flying in the first 20 minutes, so it’s about weathering that storm, getting through it and showing the quality we’ve got.
“First and foremost you’ve got to match them for everything they are. So, we’ve got to work as hard as them and compete. I believe, if we go man for man, we’ve got more quality and better players, and hopefully that will come through on the day.”
Thankfully Dan is feeling a lot better this week after struggling through last Saturday’s match against Kilmarnock. The 23 year old midfielder was sick four or five times in the first-half and felt little better when he came out for the second-half but still made a major contribution until subbed by Kai Kennedy in 62 minutes.
Having managed to train every day this week, Dan is fit and ready to go for Saturday’s game and earn three points that he felt should have been the outcome last weekend:-
“I felt as if we should have won the game, to be honest with you. The two goals we gave them were very cheap. We had a bit of luck with our first one and for the second one their lad slipped. I think overall if you take the goals out of the game we were the better team overall.”
The Dunfermline squad is taking growing positivity into the game against Thistle, Dan pointed out:-
“If you look at the last five games, we’ve played teams that could have been seen as the top four - Inverness, Hamilton, Raith away and then Kilmarnock.
“That’s four very good sides and we haven’t been beaten by any of them. We didn’t perform down at Queen of the South and deservedly got beat but there are plenty of positives to take. We’re not conceding as many goals and we’re creating more chances. The luck will turn and when it does I think we’ll go on a run and get up that table to where we should be.”
Partick is always a really tough place to go to and it is likely that this Saturday’s fixture will be no less so. They’re a really hard team to play against and they are well drilled but Dan stressed that the Fifers can view one defeat in last five with a positive spin:-
“If you look at it, we have lost the same number of games as Partick Thistle have, but they’re fourth and we’re bottom. There’s obviously a good points difference between the teams, but at the end of the day they’ve lost as many as us.
“The difference is we’ve not been scoring as many goals and we’ve actually been conceding some terrible ones. People will say Partick Thistle are flying, they’re doing really well, but we’ve just not won the games we should have been winning. If we had won two games and lost seven we would have one more point than what we’ve got.”
Five draws from nine league games are certainly costly in terms of points but hopes are high that the Pars can emulate their result at Firhill on the opening day of the season when they came from behind to convincingly win their Premier Sports Cup tie. Dan recalled:-
“We went there and beat them 4-2 and they came to us and beat us 3-0, so it just shows we can go there and beat them. We have got to start from the first whistle and compete and match them. Then I believe our quality will shine through.”
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