THERE are many ways to winkle out a win in this beautiful game. Yes, everybody would like their team to put opponents to the sword with same kind of style, panache and swashbuckling thrustings of Zorro, but sometimes the vanquishing of a rival can be about as easy on the eye as Quasimodo with an appalling cold.
“It’s good to have the other side in our game that we can win ugly,” suggested Danny Devine after Partick Thistle continued their resurgence with a narrow, hard-earned victory over stuttering St Johnstone. “It wasn’t the best of games and it was scrappy, but we got the three points.”
Alan Archibald’s men capped off a profitable seven days at Firhill as they made it seven points from nine in their last three matches, a haul which has lifted them off the bottom of the Ladbrokes Premiership and into 10th spot in a tight division.
Miles Storey, who earned Thistle’s first league victory of the season with his late show against Dundee last Saturday, was the match-winner again at the weekend as his surging run and classy finish saw off St Johnstone.
Devine was delighted with the industry Thistle demonstrated to keep the visitors at bay. It may not have been the most alluring spectacle but the 25-year-old was more than happy to see his team-mates roll up the sleeves and safeguard their lead.
“The run we had been on knocked us a little bit but hopefully that’s behind us now,” he said. “We have shown character, grit and determin-ation to turn it around.”
Storey, who enjoyed a profitable loan spell at Inverness before a largely unfulfilling stint at Aberdeen last season, continued his rejuvenation in Maryhill with the only goal of the game that highlighted his devastating pace and goal scoring instinct.
“Miles had a tough year last season but he has shown what he is all about with his goal, pace and power and long may that continue,” added Devine.
“Any team that does well always has a goal scorer. We have Miles, Connor [Sammon] and Kris [Doolan] now and I think they blend well together.
“We have maybe relied on Dools and to be fair to him he has come up with the goals, but it is nice to have other options.”
St Johnstone could certainly do with somebody, anybody bundling one of over the line.
This was the Perth club’s fifth match in a row without a goal as they continued to find themselves stuck in the kind of drought that will have the good folk at Highland Spring sending emergency bottles up the road from their Auchterarder depot.
“We’ll take a goal whatever way it comes,” conceded Steven MacLean after another barren afternoon in which St Johnstone carved out a series of potential openings but lacked the craft to make telling gains.
“The lack of goals is definitely a concern. As a striker I’ve got to take the brunt of that but we need to score from all over. We’ve got to take more responsibility and show more belief.”
Ending this barren run against the reigning champions, Celtic, next weekend wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
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