Brian Graham says Jags must ‘let shackles off’ in bid to turn Ayr tie around

Brian Graham says Partick Thistle must throw off the shackles as they try to rescue their Premiership hopes against Ayr United on Friday night.

The Honest Men go into the second leg of their play-off quarter-final a goal to the good following Tuesday’s 1-0 win at Firhill, thanks to a Jamie Murphy header 10 minutes into the second half.

Thistle’s interim co-manager Graham, who also plays as centre-forward, reviewed the first leg and sensed his side were inhibited and now he wants the Jags to go at Scott Brown’s men for the right to meet Championship runners-up Livingston in the semi-final.

“At times I thought we were a bit rushed and over the piece that we needed more composure and probably needed more bodies in the box at times,” said the Thistle boss, who will monitor one or two knocks in his squad ahead of the second leg.

“I thought we were reserved. We need to let the shackles off, we need to go for it.

“It’s a one-off game to try to get to the semi-final and we need to play with a bit of freedom.

“We said to the boys that the pressure was off them after we made the play-offs.

“I don’t know if that maybe spooked them a little bit but there is no pressure on them, just go and enjoy the game and what will be will be.

“We did fantastic to get to this position and we are looking forward to the game tomorrow night.

“At the same time, do Ayr sit in and try to protect their lead?

“So there is a lot of things that can happen within the game but we now know we have to go there and win, it is as simple as that.”

Graham takes succour from the fact that Thistle beat champions Falkirk and Livingston in the final two games of the campaign – a 2-1 home win over the Bairns and a 1-0 victory in West Lothian – to secure the last play-off spot.

He said: “We can’t sit off the game and go for a draw, we need to go and try to win the game.

“I will go back to the Livingston game where we knew we had to go there and win against a team that had not lost many home games and we showed that we can do it.

“We showed that we can beat the top two in the division so we need to go to Ayr full of hope and belief that we can get the result.”