Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald hailed Kris Doolan’s football brain after the substitute scored within 60 seconds of coming on in a 2-0 victory over St Johnstone.
Doolan came on for Mathias Pogba after a goalless 71 minutes and latched on to a loose ball to fire into the bottom corner from 18 yards.
Archibald said: “It’s a fantastic impact. He is great when he starts and scores but he’s a great sub as well, he watches the game and sees where he can maybe get an edge. He does that all the time for us and we’re delighted to have him.”
Another substitute, David Amoo broke away with three minutes left to slot a second, and Archibald was happy to receive the acclaim for his changes.
“I’ll take it while it’s going because it’s usually booing,” he said. “They go for you sometimes and sometimes they don’t so we’re delighted it happened tonight and David made an impact as well.”
Thistle had seen their previous two matches postponed but the victory moved them up to eighth place and they still have games in hand on all their rivals.
“We started steadily and grew into the game,” Archibald said. “The pitch played okay – it’s good believe it or not, even though it looks horrific.”
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St Johnstone would have moved up to fourth with a draw and manager Tommy Wright felt that was the least they merited.
“It’s disappointing not to build on the night’s display because we didn’t deserve that,” he said.
“We played well and created chances. But ultimately when you make mistakes like we did for the first goal – when we didn’t clear or deal with it – then it’s difficult to come back.
“Then we gave the ball away cheaply for the second goal and they hit us on the counter.”
Wright lost Murray Davidson inside 15 minutes to a head injury.
“Murray is concussed and cut,” he said. “He always seems to pick up things like that but it’s the way he plays.
“Chris Millar went off too with an injured hamstring. We had to cope with that and I thought we did. Steven MacLean didn’t play because he played on Saturday.”