Airdrie boss Rhys McCabe: It took us 45 minutes to wake up against Thistle

Rhys McCabe admits Airdrie gave themselves a mountain to climb after being asleep for 45 minutes, but praised their second-half performance in the 2-1 defeat at Partick Thistle this afternoon.

The Diamonds were 2-0 down to the Jags inside 37 minutes, with Aidan Fitzpatrick's corner headed in by Ricco Diack to score his first goal in seven minutes, before the winger's cross took a wicked deflection off defender Callum Fordyce and looped over goalkeeper Josh Rae.

Airdrie had barely laid a glove on their hosts by that point, but gave their fans hope of a fightback when Calum Gallagher nodded Adam Frizzell’s cross down to Craig Watson to blast into the net nine minutes after the break.

And sub Nikolay Todorov should have done better than drag his shot wide of the left post when he could have levelled in stoppage time.

Player-boss McCabe told the club’s website: “I stressed to the boys in there that it shouldn’t take us 45 to get going, that’s the frustrating bit.

“There are loads of elements of that game that I’m delighted with.

“In terms of the performance, we’ve come away from home to Partick, and for large parts played some really good stuff, particularly in the transitions.

“But it shouldn’t take us 45 minutes to wake up.

“In the second half we never really changed too much, but what we did was give a little bit more enthusiasm, a little bit more desire off the ball to make runs, and it was evident that we had Partick pinned back – I don’t think they created a chance in the second half.

“I’m just frustrated that it took us almost 45 minutes to wake up.”

McCabe admits Kanayo Megwa was picking up a player he shouldn’t have been, and that led to his side switching off as Diack stole in to head into the bottom right corner