Partick Thistle have drawn admiration for their easy-on-the-eye playing style since returning to the Premiership two seasons ago, but Ryan Stevenson believes that they may need to compromise some of their principles should they want to stay at the top- table of the Scottish game.

With no wins in nine league games going into Saturday’s crucial showdown with Dundee United at Firhill, Stevenson has challenged his team-mates to come out all guns blazing against their equally-beleaguered opponents, and he isn’t particularly bothered whether they gain an early advantage by way of a Brazil 1970 style stunner or by way of the referee’s posterior.

He said: “It would obviously be nice to get the first goal and go one-up, it doesn’t matter if it hits somebody on the a**e and goes in, that’s what we need!

“It’s just vital that we get three points, whether that means playing great football or getting a goal off somebody’s backside then shutting up shop, we just have to get that first win.

“I think now with the stage we’re at we just need those three points on the board.

“It’s a massive thing getting that first goal, and even more so psychologically for us now.

“If you look at the Motherwell game, as soon as they scored Scott McDonald dropped back into midfield and they went five across the middle.

“The only silver lining is the fact that Dundee United haven’t managed to pull away.

“We’ve got a big game now at the weekend, and even though it’s early in the season I think everyone knows the enormity of the game on Saturday.

“I think that we envisaged ourselves having a stronger start than we’ve had, but we’re only in September so if we can win two or three games on the bounce like Kilmarnock did recently then everything will begin to look a bit rosier.

“It’s crazy to think we’re in September and we’ve got a massive game already. The boys know what’s at stake.”

Stevenson says that the responsibility for Thistle’s poor start lies squarely with the players.

“We try our hardest every week,” he said.

“The positive is that if you look at Thistle, we went through a tough spell last season without winning and the club stuck by the manager.

“The outcome of that was that we had the highest finish that the club had ever had.

“At the end of the day though football is a results-driven business, and everybody knows the position that we’re in.

“The boys know that and that we have to start performing. The manager and the coaching staff can only do so much, it’s really down to the players once we go over that white line and hopefully we can start on Saturday.”