Partick– 24 hours on

Leitch organises the wall

Let’s start by looking at the positives from yesterday. We did play poorly overall but despite Partick having more of the ball, we restricted them to only one our two shots on target all game. As ever, we struggled to cope with Gerry Britton but we did win our fair share of second balls and David Partridge had solid game at the middle of our defence.

We also showed great fighting ability to come back from a goal down. In the past we would have allowed our heads to drop after losing a late goal but instead we stuck to the task and managed to get an equaliser.

However, Terry Butcher will be a busy man in training this week as we have a number of things which have to be improved. The goal we lost was very poor defensively and while it was not the fault of any one player, we cannot afford to concede as easily as we did.

James McFadden is obviously our star player but when he had a quiet game, the rest of the team struggled. While Faddy will do a lot for us this season, the rest of the players cannot sit back and let him do everything. They have to support him while he’s playing well and they also have to deliver by themselves when he is having an off day.

The other disappointing thing of note was the attitude of Dirk Lehmann. While we need him to be fired up, he has to rise above acts of gross stupidity. He should have been sent off yesterday and was exceptionally lucky to escape with just a booking. He is one of our most experienced players and he has a part to play in bringing on the youngsters – committing silly acts of dissent is not the example he should be setting.

We have a good record at Kilmarnock in recent years and it would be nice if this would continue. This may be difficult given their good start to the season but if we can cut out silly mistakes, there is no reason why we cannot take at least a draw.