PARTICK Thistle's board of directors ensured some short-term stability for their embattled club yesterday when Derek Whyte and Gerry Britton were confirmed as the caretakers throughout the critical Christmas and New Year period.
The long-term successor to Gerry Collins will be debated at a meeting held at Firhill today but having recorded their first league win of the season against Motherwell two weeks ago, the senior players have been rewarded for their efforts with an extended period, concluding on January 3, to promote their own applications.
''It's more important for the players to know that there will be no more uncertainty during an important period of matches for us,'' said Britton upon hearing the news yesterday.
Having fallen to defeat in what was billed as an old- fashioned six-pointer against Aberdeen on Saturday, Thistle have the opportunity to gain ground on Dundee United, who remain third bottom of the Premierleague despite a recent return to form. Thereafter, they have festive fixtures against Dunfermline at home and Hibs at Easter Road to convince Tom Hughes, Thistle's chairman, of their credentials.
''It is heartening to know that the club have enough confidence in you to extend your time in charge,'' Britton added. ''We had no problem agreeing to it because regardless of whether we get the job it's great experience for us.
''We have got to take points off of all the teams in the bottom half of the league to give ourselves a chance and while it was disappointing to lose to Aberdeen we have another chance against Dundee United.''
Alan Dick, the club's chief executive, will sift through the list of applicants with the board members this morning and while he admits those attracting most column inches - Alan Kernaghan, Billy Davies, John Connolly, and the current incumbents - are among the favourites, he revealed the club have not identified a No.1 candidate.
''We will take a good look tomorrow. Of the 55 [applications] on my desk around 30 are serious. Some are still in employment so it would be unfair to announce any shortlist.'' said Dick yesterday.
Ian McCall, the Dundee United manager, has admitted that Saturday's game against Partick Thistle is ''by far the most important game of our season''. A win for United could ensure mid-table security and, following home wins against Hearts and Livingston, would mark their best sequence of results at Tannadice since 1999.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article