Kyle Turner revealed Kris Doolan targeted cinch Premiership football immediately upon becoming Partick Thistle boss as the Jags stand on the brink of a return to the top flight.
Doolan stepped up from his role as under-18 coach in February to take over, initially on a temporary basis, from Ian McCall and the turnaround in form since has taken the Maryhill side all the way to the play-off final.
The Jags are 2-0 up from Thursday’s first leg against Ross County – the victory extending their unbeaten run to 11 games – with the return game taking place in Dingwall on Sunday.
Thistle are the first team to finish fourth in the second tier to go all the way to the play-off final – during that run Doolan had to cope with the death of his father Lawrence – and they are looking to make more history by completing the job against the Staggies.
Malky Mackay’s side played most of the game in Glasgow with 10 men after 16-year-old defender Dylan Smith was sent off in the first half for denying Aidan Fitzpatrick an obvious goalscoring opportunity and midfielder Turner is hoping Doolan’s ambition is soon fulfilled.
The 25-year-old said: “The gaffer has been brilliant. He has had a hard time in the last few weeks and it has been tough for him.
“But when he came those were his first words, ‘let’s try to get to the Premiership’.
“He constantly goes on about it in the changing room, that we want to be looking up the way and how we want to get there.
“It is the top league in Scotland and he instilled a belief in us that we can do this and so far so good.
“Since the gaffer has come in we have a siege mentality and we keep going to see what happens.
“In five play-off games we have scored 18 goals and conceded three, so the gaffer has installed a belief in us. He wants us to be free and go and play our own game and it has worked so far.
“We were disappointed this season and we should have been challenging in the final games but we slipped up a few times and we weren’t happy with that.
“We finished fourth and we had to play six games in the play-offs. We felt the worst we should have finished was second.
“When we got past Queen’s Park, then the belief started to grow. We know Sunday will be tough and County will throw everything at us so we have to be ready.”
Turner believes the margin of victory over the Staggies, who finished 11th in the Premiership, could have been greater.
The former Stranraer and Dunfermline player said: “I thought we put on a good performance. We were actually disappointed we didn’t score more goals to be honest.
“We had a lot of chances in the second half but County defended well and they threw bodies in front of the ball to make it hard for us.
“If someone had said to us we would win 2-0 then we would have been happy.
“But the way the game went with them down to 10 men, with the chances we created, on another day we would have scored more. But overall though we are delighted with the win.”
Dundee United 0-1 Rangers: Gers close gap to Celtic with narrow win
Rangers got back to winning ways with a 1-0 victory away to Dundee United on Sunday, which saw them climb to third in the Scottish Premiership.
Philippe Clement's side are now five points behind second-placed Aberdeen and league leaders Celtic, who inflicted their first defeat of the season last time out.
The match itself was one of few chances, with forward Tom Lawrence scoring the winning goal after just seven minutes.
The goal capped a flowing, attacking move from Rangers that saw Lawrence get on the end of some one-touch passing before carrying the ball through the penalty area and beyond the goalkeeper.
Dundee United were unable to offer much in the way of a comeback, with five off-target shots the sum total of their threat throughout the match.
The match did see 10 yellow cards shown, with Dundee United's Emmanuel Adegboyega's booking for a forceful challenge reviewed by VAR towards the end of the first half. The on-field decision stood, though the defender was substituted at the break.
Data Debrief: Rangers end away day woes
Goalscorer Lawrence had five shots in the match, which is a season-high in the league for any Rangers player.
The visitors will be pleased to get three points, having won just one of their previous seven away games prior to this - their worst run since 2016.
It also means they close some of the gap to Old Firm rivals Celtic, who had opened an eight-point buffer following a 2-0 home win over Hearts on Saturday.
The hosts, meanwhile, failed to register a single effort on target for the first time in a league game since 8 May 2022. Their opponents on that day? Rangers.
Venezia win a boost for Liverpool and Inter clashes, says Fonseca
Paulo Fonseca believes Milan gained a much-needed confidence boost from their 4-0 win over Venezia with big clashes against Liverpool and Inter coming up.
The 51-year-old had already come under pressure after a lacklustre start to life at Milan, with two draws and a defeat in their opening three games.
However, a comfortable home victory over Venezia eased some of that, as Milan scored four goals in the opening 30 minutes of a match for the first time since October 1958.
"Our season already started four rounds ago, we dropped points and need to recover lost ground, but it was important to win and to win like this. It gives the players confidence to keep growing," Fonseca told Sky Sports Italia.
While Saturday's victory offered some relief for the Portuguese coach, the real test awaits when Milan host Liverpool in their Champions League opener on Tuesday, followed by a derby against Inter next weekend.
"I have to be honest, I've already started thinking about both games against Liverpool and Inter. I realise the importance of the derby. Liverpool will be very difficult, but I cannot deny I have already started studying Inter, too," Fonseca said.
"I know what it means to the fans, we are working to have good performances in both matches."
Fonseca denied that recent protests from fans, including banners placed in the stands just before kick-off warning that things needed to turn around quickly, threw him off balance.
"I think as a coach that I have to deal with these situations with balance, stay focused on my work and ignore everything around us," he said.
"Milan is a club that always has the pressure to win. If we coaches don't want this pressure, then we shouldn’t be coaches."
LA Galaxy 4-2 Los Angeles FC: Hosts claim playoff spot with stunning second-half comeback
LA Galaxy stunned derby rivals Los Angeles FC on Saturday with a superb second-half comeback to seal a 4-2 victory.
They overturned a 2-0 half-time lead with four unanswered goals around Lewis O'Brien's sending-off, becoming the first team in the Western Conference to clinch a playoff spot.
Mateusz Bogusz gambled by peeling away to the back post and was in the right place to head Denis Bouanga's deflected cross into the back of the net after just four minutes.
Just 11 minutes later, Bouanga made another driving run down the left and went for goal himself, drilling a low shot past John McCarthy from a tight angle. They could have had a third before the break, but Olivier Giroud's half-volley struck the inside of the post.
Dejan Joveljic got his first, rifling into the roof of the net after a wonderful turn, and just two minutes later, Edwin Cerrillo scored a stunning goal of his own, beating Hugo Lloris from distance by curling it in off the outside of his boot.
Joveljic's second was opportunistic – he stuck out a leg to help Riqui Puig's strike past a wrong-footed Lloris from just in front of the goal line.
O'Brien was then shown a straight red card for a lunging challenge on Miki Yamane before Puig rounded off the scoring with a whipped effort into the near post.
Data Debrief: Home advantage
To use an old cliche, it was a game of two halves, with LA Galaxy proving just why they are top of the table, and eight points clear of LAFC, in a brilliant second 45 minutes.
However, this is the first time they have won after trailing at half-time in MLS since March 24 against Sporting Kansas City, which they won 3-2, ending a seven-game run.
The Galaxy have now won 11 of their last 12 regular-season matches at Dignity Health Sports Park (D1), including the last nine in a row.
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
