When successive opponents have dispensed with the services of their managers the week before they play you – and with both of those sides currently above your own in the league table – it would be natural if Alan Archibald was feeling a tad twitchy over his position at Partick Thistle as he gears up for Saturday’s crucial match-up with Dundee United.
It is still early in the season of course, but with defeat at Motherwell condemning Archibald’s side to their ninth league match this season without a win, it isn’t so early that the term ‘must-win’ won’t have entered the lexicon of the Firhill faithful ahead of the encounter.
For Stuart Bannigan, Partick’s ever-dependable midfielder, there is no question at all that his manager is the man to turn around their fortunes, although he is astute enough to recognise the gravity of their situation should the visitors leave Firhill with maximum points on Saturday.
“The players all want to do well for him,” he said.
“We all know how good he is and how well he’s done for us all. He’s given a lot of young boys a chance to go and play, he’s good with us and he’s a really nice guy as well.
“We’re all 100 percent behind him, and we work hard every day at training for him win, lose or draw. We know it’s down to the players to go and perform.
“The manager can tell you everything you need to know before a game, but you’ve got to go and play and do your jobs and right now we’re not doing that, so it’s down to the players really.
“When we come back in on a Monday we’re looking for ways to improve all the time, not just when we’re on a bad run, but even if we get a win he’s always trying to improve us and look at things we could have done better.
“We’ve looked over the Motherwell performance on video and there wasn’t really too much we did wrong in the game.
“I thought we played pretty well in large parts of the game, we had a lot of good passages of play. We maybe didn’t create as many chances as we would have liked, but I thought we played a lot better than we did in the previous week, so there are positives to take.
“We just didn’t defend their goals well enough, but if we keep performing like that then we’ll be getting the results we deserve in the coming weeks.
“We’re not hiding from the fact that Saturday’s match is a big game. If we don’t win then there could start to be a big gap between us and the teams above us, so it’s a big incentive for us to go and beat Dundee United to go above them and close the gap on one or two others.
“People usually say that when a manager leaves then he players try to put a performance in for whoever has come in and show a bit of fight for him, so we know that United will come with all guns blazing.
“But if we keep passing the ball as we have been doing and get the ball in and around their box then I think we can hurt them.”
Whilst Bannigan is concentrating fully on improving the fortunes of his own side, he couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for his former manager Jackie McNamara as he was relieved of his duties at Tannadice.
He said: “Jackie gave me my first real chance at Thistle. He put me in the season we won the league and he gave me a great opportunity, and basically got me into the Scotland under-21s by giving me a platform to play, so I’ll always be thankful to him for that.
“He was great for me and a few of the boys here, so he was great in his time here.
“I wouldn’t say it didn’t work out at United for him, he took them to two cup finals and he produced some great players for them that got moves like Ryan Gauld, Andy Robertson and the three boys that went to Celtic.
“It’s quite hard to replace five top players and it was going to take a wee bit of time. I think he did a great job there."
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