Partick Thistle 3-0 St Johnstone: Alan Archibald wants more

Kris Doolan headed Partick Thistle into a third minute lead.

Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald challenged his team to build on their 3-0 win over St Johnstone at Firhill.

Early headers from Kris Doolan and Conrad Balatoni, later added to by a Stuart Bannigan strike, moved Thistle comfortably away from the drop zone.

With survival still not yet assured, though, Archibald wants his team to keep their performance levels up when they host Inverness next Saturday.

"People are looking for the next Hibs, we're well aware of that. We don't want to be that Hibs from last year," Archibald told BBC Scotland.

"We need to go and build on it. We know that. It's important we put those performances on back to back, it's something we've not done, and we're home again next week. We need to go and build on it."

He added: "We know how tough a team St Johnstone are to play and they're great defensively as well so we're delighted to get a 3-0 victory.

"We knew we had a couple of really bad performances here at home so we had to start on the front foot and I thought we did that today.

"I thought they managed the game really well. We had to shuffle things about, but the whole team worked ever so hard, especially the front three."

St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright was disappointed about his side's performance, but felt the game could have turned on a decision not to award the Perth men a penalty.

"Partick played quite well, but I look at my team and we give three uncharacteristic poor goals away, all from set plays," said Wright.

"It was a game where they [Thistle] were probably better than us, but Alan Mannus only had one save to make and if we defend right we can come away with a point, but we didn't.

"I thought we passed it quite well but we didn't put the ball in the box often enough and ask questions of them.

"I think we had a stonewall penalty - Steven Anderson pulled to the ground and they go up the pitch, get a free-kick, and score off it.

"The game could have changed very quickly but they deserved the win and we're very disappointed with our performance."