THERE may have been more than a few Partick Thistle supporters trooping out of Tynecastle on Saturday who believed that their players simply didn’t care about their predicament as much as they did, after such a frustratingly abject display.
But defender Callum Booth says that nothing could be further from the truth, despite the Thistle squad’s own disappointment at the level of their performance on the day.
The 26-year-old insists that the Jags players were just as gutted as any fan on Saturday night, and that the spectre of relegation is weighing just as heavily on their minds.
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That is most certainly the case during the week as they come face-to-face with the people at the club whose livelihood could very well depend on the playing squad digging their way out of their current precarious predicament.
“The staff at Thistle are absolutely brilliant, and that does play on the back of your mind,” said Booth.
“When you go out there on a Saturday you do have that expectation and pressure of other people’s jobs on you as well.
“That’s just part of football, and once you cross that white line, you are so focused that these things just go to the back of your head.
“Throughout the week though, when you see the staff every day, you can’t help but think about it. We are a relatively small club, and you see all these people who would be affected if the worst happens.
“We just need to put that to the back of our minds though, and hopefully we can get the job done and stay up, and nobody will be affected.”
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Booth was one of several Partick Thistle regulars who spent an extended portion of the season on the treatment table, but an initial upturn in fortunes when the bulk of those players returned to the side is now but a distant memory.
“We have no excuses now,” he said. “We have a big squad, and a good squad, so we’re not looking for excuses.
“On paper, it’s definitely the strongest squad since I’ve been here, and quite a lot of the boys have been saying that as well.
”Normally, we have managed to pull away from the bottom by putting together a run of results around Christmas. It’s just not happened this year, and with the bottom six fixtures just around the corner now, we’re in really big trouble.
“No one can put their finger on it, or we would be able to easily rectify it. I’m not too sure why that has happened. Obviously, the league is a little bit harder this season, and expectation was a little bit higher after making the top six last season.
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“Rolling our sleeves up and working as hard as we can is the only thing that will get us out of it.”
Booth admits his return to the side has been bittersweet, with his delight at being able to be back doing what he loves most tempered by Thistle’s poor recent results.
“It’s been great to get back playing, because it was the first time I’ve really had any injury as serious as that,” he said.
“There have been a few disappointing weekends since, but I feel as if I’m getting fitter every week and close to my own full potential again.”
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