IT did not take long for the feelgood factor to fade away at Firhill.
The announcement on deadline day that former striker Lyle Taylor was returning for a second loan spell was an unexpected boon ahead of Saturday's William Hill Scottish Cup tie against Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Partick Thistle fans, for once, approached the game with cautious optimism.
By half-time Taylor was still on the bench, Inverness were two goals ahead and the murmurs of discontent from the home supporters had grown into a full-blown venting of their disapproval. Taylor did appear at the break, and duly scored midway through the second half, but it wasn't enough to prevent Thistle from tumbling out of the cup, aspirations of winning a first major trophy since 1971 up in smoke.
The post-match analysis brought further gloom. Goalkeeper Paul Gallacher lamented a "terrible first half performance" and warned that, should they continue to play like that, it was not unrealistic that Thistle could be dragged into the relegation picture. For that to happen both Motherwell and St Mirren would have make up seven points and, although that seems fanciful, Gallacher pointed to what happened last year when Hibernian got into a rut and suddenly couldn't stop themselves sliding down the table and eventually into the Championship.
"I think we've got to look behind us [in the table] to be honest because we are so inconsistent," he said. "We saw what happened to Hibs last season. Everybody thought they were okay but they got dragged down and paid the price. You don't want to be involved in a relegation battle. We need to get consistency, get a few results and hopefully be climbing up the table."
The good news for Thistle is that they have games in hand over the teams below them. The bad news is that the first one on Wednesday is against a Celtic team that has won every game in 2015. Gallacher insisted these are challenges to be cherished but warned Thistle would need to drastically improve their performance from Saturday.
"You want to play against the best. That's why you want to play at the highest level. When Celtic come to your home ground it's fantastic. On the back of a poor performance, we need to stick to the game-plan the gaffer sets out and improve because Celtic are a fantastic outfit.
"With the greatest of respect to Inverness, Celtic are a right good team going forward and if we defend like we did in the first half they could score a few and it could get embarrassing. If we don't listen to the game-plan the gaffer sets out, we could be on the end of a severe loss. It's up to us to show we are good players and we can play against the best."
In contrast, Inverness will spend today waiting to see who they will face in the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup after first-half goals from Marley Watkins and Greg Tansey paved the way for a victory that ended up being more hard-fought than it needed to be.
"It would be the perfect way to leave Inverness for myself if we could win the Scottish Cup," admitted Graeme Shinnie who has signed a pre-contract agreement to join Aberdeen in the summer.
"I have never won a trophy with Inverness and we came close last season when we lost to Aberdeen on penalties in the League Cup final. We have a similar team to what we had then and the hunger and the desire and drive is still there to go on and win the cup."
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