Thistle hope to prey on Ayr play-off quandary
Do Ayr United stick or twist on their narrow first-leg lead as Partick Thistle visit Somerset Park to conclude the Scottish Premiership play-off quarter-final?It's a quandary the visitors hope to benefit from since their mission is crystal clear, says co-manager and captain Brian Graham.Trailing 1-0 from Tuesday's loss at Firhill, Graham is adamant there is more to come from Thistle in a game you can watch live on BBC Scotland."The game is all to play for, it's still there," he said. "We go down there and we win and we get ourselves into the semi-final. That's the feeling within the camp."Obviously, they have got the lead. Do they defend it, do they go and try and add to it? So they're in a bit of a dilemma, whereas we know we need to go and win the game and that's what we're aiming to do."Runners-up Livingston await the winners over two legs next week, with the last Championship side standing taking on the team that finishes second bottom of the Premiership for a place in the top flight.Veteran winger Jamie Murphy scored the only goal on Tuesday and he is sure the Ayr United management team of Scott Brown and Steven Whittaker will have the hosts extremely well prepared."They have a different game plan each week," he explained. "We watched a lot of footage of them [Partick Thistle] over the last couple of weeks, We will watch the Tuesday match again and plan."There's a lot to work on. There's a lot we can probably still get better at."Thistle could have Logan Chalmers back in contention, with the attacking midfielder rated 50-50 to be fit.And Graham, who has been charge with Mark Wilson since mid-February, is urging his players to be bold."We were asked to keep the club in the play-offs," he said. "We've done the job that was asked of us. Now it's about looking forward. "The result didn't go our way the other night but it's over two legs. There's not much in it."We want to approach the game in a better manner, take that extra touch, show composure on the ball, a calmness and a bravery on the ball to really go and play at times."I felt there were too many sideways passes, backwards passes on Tuesday. We need to play on the front foot. We need to go and win the game."
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