CRAIG SLATER admits Partick Thistle blew a big chance to enhance their survival bid but insists they have the quality to pull away from the danger zone.
Thistle were miles ahead of Falkirk for most of Saturday’s clash – but they were unable to make their dominance pay.
Now the Firhill side know they have to take care of Inverness Caledonian Thistle on Friday night to create some breathing space in what has become a claustrophobic bottom end of the Championship table.
Slater said: “Friday is huge now – although you can say that about all our remaining eight games. We’re at home again and we had a good result the last time against Dundee United so we need to put things right and go and win the game.
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“We just need to get ourselves out of this – we know that. In recent weeks we have shown enough so we need to stay positive, be together and we will get ourselves out of it.”
The irony was that it was Thistle’s best player – Scott McDonald – who spurned a big chance to win all three points when he missed from four yards with a header 11 minutes into the second half.
He had given Thistle the lead in 10 minutes and then Ian McShane cancelled that out against the run of play just before half-time.
Slater said: “Scott has been excellent since he has come in. He got his goal and was playing well
“Then when the ball came to him early in the second half, we’re thinking ‘here we go – he’s going to put it in the back of the net’.
“These things happen. Everyone has got to chip in with goals.
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“We got into good areas in the second half but we just didn’t have the quality.
“He and Lewis Mansell were terrific the way they ran the channels and held the ball up.
“We were excellent in the first half but conceded a sloppy goal and then I don’t think we were good enough in the second half.
“Overall, though, we had done enough to win the game and we were the better team.
“But if you don’t take your chances then you’re always running the risk of letting the other team back into it.
“We started fantastically well and we got our goal. Then we had chances that we should have taken.
“Instead, we conceded and then we were too predictable in the second half.
McDonald bundled the ball into the net in 10 minutes but it was McShane who drew the Bairns level – and he might have won it for them early in the second half but his stinging volley hit the left post.
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He said: “That could be an important point for us, especially as we were a goal down. It’s another point in the right direction.
“Deimantas Petravicius did really well. I gave him the shout, he cut it back to me and it was a fairly simple finish.
“I thought I had scored a second goal just after half-time. I hit the ball so sweetly but it hit the post unfortunately. That would have been so massive for us because it would have pulled us away from Thistle and Alloa. But the main thing is that we didn’t lose and nobody gained any ground on us.
“We’re still ahead of the other two so we’ll take it and move on. I think this is a battle that will go right to the end of the season, It’s so tight.
“All we can do is concentrate on maintaining our form. We’ve only lost one in nine but the frustrating thing is that there are quite a few draws in there.
“We’ve drawn five times and if we had turned some of these into wins we would be well up the table. But we’ll keep fighting until the end and I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
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