Partick Thistle 3 - 0 Motherwell

By Paul Marshall
April 26 2003

It's official ! Motherwell will finish bottom, the players who pulled on the 'well ' jerseys today just didn't want to fight for a win and if they keep it up in the coming weeks I don't see how we can come off bottom spot.

The team were backed by a huge travelling support ( 1,500 ) who had hoped they could produce another performance like the one at Hampden last weekend.



Terry had to make changes to last weeks side, Lasley and Pearson were serving suspensions adding to Shaun Fagan, Scott Leitch and Khaled Kemas who are out through injury. Corrigan pushed into the mifield replacing Leitch, Craig and McFadden also dropped back into the midfield.



The changes didn't work. After a bright start by Motherwell, Thistle had the first chance of the match, Liley headed over from a Craigan throw in after 10 minutes. Thistle then took the lead on the 28 minute mark through Alex Burns ( who else ? ) the former Motherwell striker netted his fifth goal against us this season ( pity he couldn't find this form with us ). The small hitman flew down the left wing then slotted past Dubourdeau from a tight angle.



Gerry Britton doubled Thistle's lead on the 68 minute mark killing off any chance of a Motherwell fightback, the veteran forward struck home after Dubourdeau had twice punched the ball clear from only 3 yards out. Britton volleyed in his second of the day just before full time to give Thistle an impressive 3 - 0 win and secure SPL football at Firhill next season.









Butcher said after the game, "I am very disappointed with the players, they are a bunch of honest guys who let themselves down today when we expected more. Full credit to Thistle who saw the chance to put points between us and them and they took it

"Sometimes we need to put in ugly performances to get the points. If anybody knows how we can get ourselves up for the game last week but then follow it up with a performance like this

"I couldn't get the shape of the side the same as last week due to the players available. We had four forward players in the team but we never got the ball to them often enough. We didn't do enough in the final third to trouble Kenny Arthur.

"All of our remaining games are huge. but if we play like this next week then we will lose, and I've used this saying recently. We will have to play much better and I am confident we can. "





Arthur,

Craigan,

Whyte,

Rowson (Rushford 90),

Archibald,

Mitchell,

Lilley,

Ross (Milne 90),

Hardie,

Britton,

Burns,

(Buchan 84).





Dubourdeau 7

Corrigan 6

Partridge 5

Vaughan 5

Hammell 7

Cowan 5

Adams 7

Craig 7

(Offiong 69) 3

Clarkson 7

McFadden 7

Lehmann 5

Att: 4,870

Ref: I Brines



Sorry there's no pictures availible today as I forgot to take my digi cam.