PARTICK Thistle managing director Ian Maxwell says manager Alan Archibald will not be given unlimited time to turn around their poor start to the season, as he warned against complacency setting in at Firhill.
Maxwell told The National that while the board are fully behind Archibald, they are concerned about poor starts the Firhill side have made in the past three seasons.
And while Archibald and his team have managed to turn those disappointing openings to their campaigns around, making the top six last season, Maxwell says that is no guarantee they can do it again.
And he admits the starts made by rival sides have put pressure on the run of fixtures coming up for Thistle.
“We’ve had a tough start, and we all know the fixtures have been really difficult,” said Maxwell.
“But at the same time, while it is good for the manager to know that he has our backing, there is no way that we are being complacent.
“It’s not the case that we look at the results and just accept it, shrug our shoulders and say that we always start slowly and that’s alright. The board are very aware of that.
“I’m not saying we will treat it any differently from previous seasons, but it’s not as simple as saying we can just sit here and say everything will be OK because we have managed to turn it around in previous years, and because we managed to come out of a worse start than this last season and make the top six.
“We’re not naïve enough to think that, and neither is the manager.
“You have to look at every season differently. The league is a lot tougher this year, and what the poor start does do is puts a lot more pressure on the games coming up against the sides that you would realistically expect to be around us in the league.
“But I don’t think we have played as well this year as we have done in previous years at this time. There have been factors behind that with injuries etc. In my opinion, the squad is definitely stronger than it was 12 months ago, so you could argue that we should have some points on the board.
“There are six or seven clubs now who really fancy their chances of getting one of those last couple of places available in the top six, and because of how other clubs have started, we really need to start picking up points.
“I’m not saying that anything is going to change, but I’m also not saying that we are sitting here as a board thinking we’ll just give it as long as it takes to turn around.
“The manager doesn’t want that either. He knows we all want to get some points on the board.”
Maxwell has meanwhile welcomed a six-figure investment in the club that has seen the name of the ground change to The Energy Check Stadium at Firhill.
“These things all come down to finance, and we are always looking at different ways to bring revenue streams into the club,” he said.
“We’ve had offers before and they’ve never been quite right, we wanted to wait until we got the right deal.
“The money gives us a chance to allow for things like gates being down or other deals falling through, and that will fill that hole, so it’s not as simple as saying the extra money will just be spent on the team.
“Hopefully that will be the case, and ultimately, every extra bit of revenue we bring in will wind its way to the manager.”
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