Motherwell 1 Partick Thistle 1

Ramsay in action

Thistle made the better start to the game and probably had the better tactics throughout. They played everything at 100 miles per hour and rarely gave us time to settle on the ball. While this stopped us playing our football, they lacked creativity and Stevie Woods was not troubled once in the first half.

For whatever reason, we never settled today and only managed sporadic bursts up the park. Stephen Pearson looked dangerous on the left but despite getting to the goal line on a couple of occasions, he couldn’t produce a quality cross.

The only shot on target in the first half came from Jamie McFadden’s free kick. The Thistle goalie covered his line well and dived to turn the ball wide for a corner.

The ‘Well players were probably lambasted by Butcher and started the second half in dominate fashion. We almost took the lead when a header deflected off Derek Whyte was only stopped by a brilliant diving save.

At this point Butcher made a tactical change to press home our advantage and the jury is still considering whether he got it right. Kinniburgh replaced McDonald and we switched to a 3-5-2. From this moment, Thistle began to control the midfield and their buzzing strikers were beginning to see enough of the ball to cause us problems.

However, while we needed to scramble the ball away a couple of times, Woods was only forced into action once, making a routine catch from a soft shot. This changed when Thistle took the lead – the ball bobbled around the box for a long time before Alex Burns headed home with no one near him.

Thistle should have wrapped up the points but a shot was flicked wide when Woods should have been called into action.

As often happens, Thistle were made to pay for their generosity in front of our goal when the Golden Child delivered. Faddy was poor by his standards all day but when he was allowed to collect the ball in space, he raced into the box and crossed for Pearson to head home at the back post.

That was it goal-wise and both teams would probably be happy with the draw. Our lack of discipline could have cost us dear again though, with three more players booked and Lehmann lucky to stay on the pitch for arguing with the referee. The referee hit new lows of incompetence, being even worse than Rowbotham last week, but that is no excuse.

It was a valuable point to put on the board and it keeps us off the bottom of the league. How long will that last for if we continue lethargic performances like today remains to be seen.