AFTER six long months, Partick Thistle are now just a few days away from returning to competitive action. Before they travel to Paisley to take on St Mirren and kick-start their Betfred Cup campaign, though, there will be one final warm-up match against Robbie Neilson’s Hearts at Firhill this afternoon.

It’s been a long and arduous journey for the Jags after months of infighting, missing votes and administrative farce. But with a few friendlies under their belts now – including, most recently, a 2-2 draw with Ayr United in Maryhill on Wednesday afternoon – manager Ian McCall is confident that his players are raring to go for next week’s curtain-raiser.

While the Buddies are in poor form, McCall is more than wary of the threat they pose. And, the Jags boss added, it will be Jim Goodwin’s men that will be the favourites as they’ve had two months of competitive football to prepare for the opening round of the League Cup.

He explained: “Usually, you’ve got a wee bit of an advantage playing a Premiership team but I think it’s St Mirren that have the advantage. They battle hard and they started the season well but they’ve not done so well lately.

“They’ve had a lot of proper football matches which makes it a wee bit harder but our fitness is coming on. Our match fitness is coming along well and there’s nothing wrong with our physical fitness.

“We’ve got three games in the Betfred Cup before our league games – not that I’m taking the Betfred Cup lightly because I never do – but hopefully they’ll all be up to speed and desperate to get in the team when we play Clyde at Broadwood [on the opening day].”

As for Wednesday’s showing against Ayr, McCall sees plenty of positives from his side. The Thistle manager reckons Mark Kerr’s team will be there or thereabouts in the race for the play-offs come the end of the season, and was encouraged that his men managed to match their opponents in what was an entertaining encounter in Glasgow’s west end.

“I thought for 70 minutes it was a great game,” he said. “[Mark] Kerr had already told me he was going to make a lot of changes in the last 20 minutes. We could have probably won it in the last 20 minutes but it wouldn’t have really mattered, they brought an awful lot of kids on.

“It was a really good, competitive game. I’m pleased with lots of parts of it, not so pleased with others. We lost a goal that we can’t defend against – big [Joe] Chalmers with a terrific free-kick – but we should have done better for the second goal. We scored a couple of good goals and I’m really happy we got 90 minutes in a lot of the players’ legs.

“I thought we were getting stronger as the game went on. They had one or two chances, we had one or two chances… it was a good workout. I’m not sure if a lot of the teams will play out from the back in League One but maybe they will, I don’t know. Certainly, that’s what Ayr tried to do. It was a really good test and I think the players all enjoyed it.”

One man who caught the eye in particular in midfield was Declan Glass, the Dundee United playmaker who has signed up on loan for a season in League One with the Jags.

The precocious youngster showed a few nice touches, sprayed the ball about admirably and showed a real intelligence with his passing distribution – but McCall believes the midfielder will have to get used to hearing a few choice words from his own team-mates, given the nature of his position and the role he will be asked to fulfil.

McCall said: “He’s got terrific ability and he’ll get used to getting shouted at by his team-mates because when you’re that type of player you’re always getting shouted at.

“He’s got to be brave, to try and beat people and try and score goals and do the right things.”

The manner in which Thistle will line up this season has sparked debate amongst some section of the club’s support, with McCall now able to chop and change his formation at will as the occasion demands it.

The summer arrivals mean the squad is in good shape to alternate between a 3-5-2, a 4-4-2 and a 4-2-3-1 without fitting square pegs in round holes and while the Thistle boss wouldn’t detail exactly how he sees his strongest XI, he did reveal that the Jags are likely to be playing with two up top for large spells of the upcoming season.

“I think it’s important [to be tactically versatile],” he added. “When Zak Rudden is fit, we’ll be playing with two strikers but it’s important that you can play one or two different formations.”