Thistle's form against Queen's Park's August stalemate
Queen's Park host an in-form Partick Thistle, but the one meeting this season ended goalless. A look at the form, the shared opponents and a verdict.
By Barrie Moran,
Queen's Park host Partick Thistle at Lesser Hampden on Saturday on the back of five matches that make grim reading: one win, four defeats, nine goals conceded and not a single clean sheet. Thistle arrive with three wins, a draw and a defeat from their last five. On form this looks straightforward. The one thing that argues otherwise is the last time these two met.
A goalless draw that does not fit
On 29 August it finished Partick Thistle 0-0 Queen's Park. It is the only meeting this season, and it sits awkwardly beside everything since. Queen's Park have not kept a clean sheet in their last five, and Thistle have scored in every one of theirs. Yet on Thistle's own ground neither side found a way through. One match is thin evidence, and August is a while ago, but it is the only occasion on which Queen's Park have actually had to deal with this opponent, and they came away with a point.
Queen's Park's recent run
The sequence reads defeat at Raith Rovers 2-0, a 2-1 home win over Inverness, then defeats at Greenock Morton 2-0, at home to Dunfermline 1-0 and at Ayr United 3-2. They have been shut out in three of those five. The Ayr defeat at least had goals in it, and the two matches at Lesser Hampden produced a win and a one-goal loss, which is not much but is the least bad corner of the run.
Thistle's run, and a wobble last time out
Thistle won 2-1 at Livingston, 1-0 at Ayr United, drew 1-1 at Dunfermline and beat Stenhousemuir 3-0 before losing 3-2 at home to Greenock Morton last weekend. The away results in that stretch are the eye-catching part: two wins and a draw on the road. The Morton defeat is a reminder that they are not airtight, with three conceded at home, but they have two clean sheets in five, which is two more than Queen's Park.
What the shared opponents say
Both sides have played Ayr United, Dunfermline and Greenock Morton recently. Queen's Park lost all three, scoring two and conceding six. Thistle won one, drew one and lost one, with four scored and four conceded. The direct comparisons are telling. At Ayr, Queen's Park lost 3-2 where Thistle won 1-0. Against Dunfermline, Queen's Park lost at home where Thistle drew away. Morton beat both. It is a clear gap, but not a chasm: none of Queen's Park's three defeats was by more than two goals.
Verdict
My view is that Partick Thistle are the likelier winners, and I would expect them to take the points, though not by a wide margin. Five matches of recent form, the shared-opponent results and Thistle's scoring record all point the same way. Queen's Park have not stopped anyone scoring in over a month, and Thistle have scored against everyone.
What would change my mind is already on the record. If the August draw is the truer guide to how this pairing plays out, rather than the five matches since, then the form counts for less than it appears. I think the more recent evidence tells more, but a side that held Thistle to nothing once is entitled to be taken seriously at home.