Tony Watt impressed with Mark Wilson's tactical vision

The Herald Scotland

4 days ago

Talk is all well and good, but it is Wilson's actions that have left Watt convinced he made the right call. The centre-forward had other offers, but Wilson's vision and attention to detail won him over very quickly. And once he signed on the dotted line in Maryhill, he knew he had made the right choice.
'It took quite a while, but there was an opportunity to maybe go abroad, or here, and the abroad one was crazy,' Watt explained. 'It took me about a week or ten days just to explore it, and then after that I spoke with the manager, and I was sold straight away.
'When we actually sat down and spoke, I gave him a word after the coffee and said I'll sign. It just took a week and that was it done.
'The thing that struck me was… I'm quite a good judge of character. I know him obviously through training together because we've played together and he had a great career. But when I spoke to him he was just talking about the small culture changes.
'I've heard the word 'culture' getting bandied about in football: 'Culture, we need to do this, blah, blah, blah', but nobody really doing anything. But he was showing me good examples of the small things that he's doing to improve the club. Just stupid things that people wouldn't understand if they don't know how to run a football club; he was doing small things and I was thinking, 'He's legit, he's serious'.
'And then after two training sessions I was straight in. I've said it to him - I'm impressed. I've said it to the boys. The video analysis, the way details stuff, the way we train, everything. It's good.'
One of the biggest tactical tweaks Wilson has implemented during pre-season has been an aggressive high press. It worked a treat during the first half of Tuesday night's 2-0 win over Queen of the South, and Watt says it's the kind of set-up he enjoys playing in.
'I prefer it,' he said. 'I've always preferred it in my career because, contrary to popular belief, my game's probably running – running in behind, pressing people, getting joy, annoying defenders.
'It's good. The way we were set up the other night was brilliant. Straight from the first minute we were on them and it helps you with your jobs, it means you don't really need to think. He's taken the thinking away in my pressing. I don't want this just to be about me praising the manager and trying to get myself on the team! But he's really good, him and Alec Rae.'
As the only fit senior striker available for today's trip to Dingwall for the fourth and final Premier Sports Cup group stage fixture, Watt's place in the starting XI seems assured. Having scored on his debut in the 2-0 win over Stranraer, he then failed to add to his tally on Tuesday night, largely due to some goalkeeping heroics from Ross Stewart. One double save – where the keeper twice denied Watt from point-blank range – was particularly impressive.
'The keeper's done me with the second save,' Watt admitted. 'The first one's an unbelievable save, and the second one he smothers is unbelievable. Obviously I'm disappointed it never went in, but to be honest, there's not much more I can do. I'm stretching for the first one and I'm going for the rebound in the second one, so the keeper done well.
'We could have been 3, 4, 5-0 up. The keeper was excellent and I'm just glad that Fitzy got the breakthrough. He's a game-changer and he changed the game for us.'
Thistle travel to Dingwall this afternoon in a straight shoot-out for top spot in Group B. A point is enough for Wilson's men to do just that, and Watt says he and his team-mates will be looking to looking to replicate their free-flowing first-half display against Queens against Ross County.
'We'll do our analysis on them and we'll see where they lie and we'll see how we can do it,' he said. 'We just need to go into every game with the same attitude and application we did on Tuesday and give the supporters something to be proud of.
'I think the manager has done that so far and I think the players have done that so far. I can't take credit for the first two results [in the group stage ] because I didn't start and I came in a bit late. But the work they've done before I came in, it must have been good because every game there's been a kind of disciplined, rigid, front-footed attacking performance. And I think if you marry all that together you've got a good recipe [for success].'