Scottish Premiership
- Venue: Pittodrie Stadium, Aberdeen
- Date: Wednesday, 30 December
- Kick-off: 19:45 GMT
Coverage: Updates on BSports Radio Scotland 810MW/DAB/online & BSports website
Lineup, Bookings (0) & Substitutions (0)
Match Stats
Aberdeen have Willo Flood back in the squad after he missed Saturday's draw with Inverness with a bug.
Fellow midfielder Cammy Smith is also fighting to overcome the effects of illness, but other than that manager Derek McInnes has a full squad.
Midfielder Sean Welsh will serve his suspension for Partick Thistle on Wednesday after the weekend match with St Johnstone was postponed.
Winger Christie Elliott is the Jags' only injury absentee.
Reporter's notes
Aberdeen would have been going into the game as league leaders if they had defeated Inverness Caledonian Thistle at Pittodrie last Saturday in a game that was reminiscent of Ross County's recent visit to the same venue.
On that occasion the Dons recovered from a flat first half performance to turn on the style in the second period after trailing by a goal at the interval before eventually running out 3-1 winners.
This time a second goal from the Highlanders just after the break left Aberdeen with too much to do, although in the end they just ran out of time to snatch a winner after a concentrated spell of pressure in the last half hour.
Referee Willie Collum didn't do his recent reputation much good with the penalty decisions that were and were not given during an exciting 90 minutes played in atrocious weather conditions.
Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes |
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| "We are against a team who are in brilliant form themselves. They have rested up over the weekend so I'm sure they will come up here and be optimistic. "We have always had decent games against Partick Thistle, they are a team I have high regard for. "Their manager is a friend but I like the way his teams always set up to go and win the game, they never just hope to win the game. "I think Alan is as good a manager as there is in the league." |
However, what it did prove was that the Dons are difficult to beat again, especially at home where they have been in impressive form during the whole of 2015.
They have only lost three games at Pittodrie this year, to Celtic and St Johnstone twice, with the Perth club's 5-1 victory there at the start of October the only one inflicted so far this season.
That alone shows how tough it will be for Partick Thistle at a venue where they haven't won since Alex Burns got the only goal of the game back in February 2003.
Despite that, Alan Archibald's team go into the game after an extended rest period after their Boxing Day against St Johnstone was postponed and are on a great run of form.
The Jags board deserve credit for realising the job their manager was doing despite a terrible start to the season and continuing to back him rather than racing into the usual panic changes.
Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald |
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| "We've got the hardest two away fixtures in the league coming up. You don't need to motivate the guys for these games. "We're on a good run ourselves, so we will take that confidence into the game. "We need to be at our best defensively and offensively, but we can take inspiration from the likes of Motherwell and Inverness, who have both gone away to the top two and got results recently. Hopefully we can do the same. "Our incentive is to try and stay as high as we can above the teams down the bottom. "We're on a great run yet we're only three points ahead of Kilmarnock in second bottom. "We couldn't buy a win in the first nine games of the season and now we're four wins in a row." |
Three points and just three goals scored in their first nine league games is just a fading memory now after a run of six wins and just one defeat in their subsequent nine league matches.
Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes certainly has a lot of admiration for the job being done by his former Dundee United team mate and expects as tough a game from Glasgow's Jags and he got from the Highland variety last weekend.
