Partick Thistle midfielder Stuart Bannnigan is hoping that Dundee United are still feeling the loss of Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong when they face the Jags this weekend.

Alan Archibald's side have slumped to the lower half of the league after a dip in form and the careless defending is something that the Firhill side have spent the week addressing.

United, though, have also dipped in form recently and Bannigan is hoping that Thistle can use that to their advantage when the teams meet at Tannadice.

"They've gone off the boil a wee bit, with just one point from their last three games," said Bannnigan.

"Maybe they've been affected by losing Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay-Steven but they're still right up there.

"They have really dangerous attacking players who can cause problems with their movement so we'll need to be on song if we're going to stop them."

Bannigan, meanwhile, has refuted claims that Thistle could end up in the same predicament as Hibs last season - a warning sent out by Archibald after last weekend's defeat.

"They didn't win any of their last 13 games so we're not anywhere near that yet," insisted the 22-year-old." I think that kind of talk is a bit premature.

"What we need to do is to pick up our defensive form. The killer for us recently has not been keeping clean sheets.

"At the start of the season we were doing well in that regard and we still have the beat goals-against record in the bottom half of the table.

"We need to get back to what we were doing before because we're giving other teams too many chances to score at the moment.

"Even thinking back to when Inverness beat us 2-1 in the Scottish Cup there were three or four occasions when they had one-on-one situations with our 'keeper and that's something we need to cut out at source.

"We've been working during the week on our defensive shape so that people know where they should be and how they should react in different situations.

"It all comes from communication and talking to each other during games when we don't have the manager to tell us what we should be doing.

"We've been punished for giving the ball away in our own half, especially when the pitches haven't been great. We like to play football the right way so it's not a fault that we keep trying to pass the ball."