PTFC 0 DUFC 0

A bit late given that this game was on Friday, but thought I might as well do an article about the game. Been a bit busy over the weekend and was stuck in a training thing today so haven't had the chance before now.

I went through for the opening game of the Premiership season and I came away with mixed feelings about the game. However, before I go into the game can I just say that Firhill is one of the worst stadiums I've ever been to. The main stand is a horrible thing, with turnstyles that would make most Rangers fans trapped such is the tiny space you're expected to get through. The toilets are just horrific with hardly any space, resulting in massive queues. And that's just the mens. Apparently the womens toilets were worse. And they ran out of food before half time. The United support was said to be 2100. That's probably how many seats that stand holds. However, they didn't seem to count the people who had to stand after all the seats were taken, and there were quite a few of those. Absolute shambles by Thistle to be honest.


Anyway, the game itself. I was surprised to see GMS on the bench but by all accounts Dow had performed well down at Wigan so rightly kept his place. It seemed GMS was slightly put out by this as he was barely involved in the second half when he did feature. Disappointing. Going forward we weren't great and we lacked a bit of thrust. Having said that Goodie really should have had us ahead in the first half with one or two really good chances - the one where he fluffed the header after a terrific ball in by Robertson really should have been buried. Second half I thought was probably edged by Thistle though so we can't really complain about the point against a pumped up Thistle team.

I thought the tactics were strange at times. He started 4231 but Armstrong for me didn't help Paton at all and to be frank was poor throughout for me, probably United's worst player. Paton on the other hand had a very good game and looks a shrewd acquisition. Then we basically just changed to a 5 defenders and 5 attackers system, and even then the two full backs were pushing on. How the game finished goalless is a mystery given the way we set up but that's football.

I thought the defence did surprisingly well. Both full backs were excellent, Paton shielded well and Dillon played well. At the time I thought Butcher played reasonably well too however having seen the lunge back again I thought he was very lucky to stay on. However, given that they had just had two tackles which were just as bad he was unlucky to even give away a freekick if the ref was being consistent! He is young though so hopefully he'll stop trying to get sent off!

Man of the Match for me was one from Paton, Watson or Robertson, with probably Paton edging it for me.


Sad to see though that the weekends action is being totally overshadowed by both sides of the Old Firm. On Radio Scotland on Saturday they spent a good 40 minutes of the first hour talking about Rangers. They should have been talking about the football. And now with today's events from both of them all we'll hear about this week is non-footballing issues. I despair sometimes, I really do.