Archibald hoping for top-six finish

Boss Alan Archibald is preparing for a crucial week of football which he hopes ends with the "huge'' achievement of Partick Thistle in the top six.

The Maryhill men are in eighth place in the Premiership, behind Dundee only on goal difference and three points behind Ross County having played a game less than the Staggies, who host the Jags in the final game before the split.

Before that, Thistle have home games against second-bottom Kilmarnock on Saturday and basement side Dundee United on Tuesday night with the former Jags defender hoping to still be in the mix for a top-half finish by the time he plans for the trip north.

Archibald said: "We want to be going to Dingwall at the end of next week with something to play for.

"It would be fantastic for us to go there with a chance of getting in that top six.

"It would be huge. All we want to do is progress each season.

"We were 10th, then eighth last season, could we go and build on that again?

"That was our aim at the start of the season.

"If we can get victory against Kilmarnock that would take us away from the danger zone and give us the chance to look up.

"I don't know how many points we need, I wish I could say, which is why we can't look too far ahead.

"The biggest one out of the three is the Kilmarnock game, that gives us the chance to go and build on it.

"Then we have the Dundee United game, which becomes a game in hand and other teams are playing each other as well.

"So the Killie game is the first thing we deal with and it could be the hardest one because they are all fighting for their lives.''

Thistle came from behind to beat Hamilton 2-1 before the international break and while Archibald acknowledged the confidence taken from the result, he was glad his players were given some much-needed respite.

The former Jags defender said: "It was a great result but the break allowed us to give a few players who were just hanging on (a rest). It was one game too many for them to be honest.

"We had a bottleneck of games, I think it was six in 19 days and six or seven of those guys played every game so it came at a good time to give them a rest.

"We still have a couple that we are waiting on but hopefully it will be okay come Saturday.''