Partick Thistle captain Abdul Osman has expressed his delight after manager Alan Archibald and assistant Scott Paterson signed new three-year deals at the club yesterday.

Osman believes that the pair are vital to the future wellbeing of the club, and he is over the moon that they will be given time to continue the progress they have made both on and off the pitch at Thistle since they took charge.

“The manager and the assistant are so important to this club, they’re all I’ve known since I’ve been here,” said Osman.

“It shows that the club are behind them as they look to continue what they’re doing, and they’re trying to build and progress every season.

“It’s vital that the gaffer and Scott are staying, they are integral to what the club are trying to do.

“I totally believe that with the manager, the aim is to become an established top-six side. They are always looking to move the club forward, and even in the time I’ve been here you can see the positive changes that they have made.

“The gaffer is just a good manager all around. Most importantly he’s a good man-manager, you can go to him and talk to him about anything.

“He’s always emphasising what he wants from us on the pitch and we always try to go out and implement that for him.

“He’s the type of manager that makes you want to do your best for him. It’s so important for a player to have manager like that who listens to you.

“I can’t speak for the rest of the players of course, but for me, the manager tries so hard for you and looks out for you so much that when you go out onto the park, you don’t want to disappoint him and you don’t want to let him down.

“He made me the captain and that’s something I’ll never forget, I am so thankful to him for that honour, and hopefully I can repay him.”

Osman has been nominated for the McCrea Financial Services player of the year award, a sign of how central a figure he has been for the Jags this season.

Although his immediate future is yet to be decided with his contract expiring in the summer, the fact that he is thinking about how the end of this season may affect the team going into next year, will give Thistle fans heart that their skipper may be looking to stick around.

He said: “To be honest, I never think too much about how I’m doing, I don’t know why, but I guess I’ve done ok!

“Obviously as a player when you hear interest from other managers and teams then it’s good for you and your confidence, but I’ve still got a target here and that’s what my full focus is on.

“I tend to think more about how the team is doing, and we could have done so much better. We’ve got to use that disappointment though and take it into next season.

“It’s very frustrating. We’ve got three games left though to put that right, and that’s what we’ll be trying to do.

“It’s very important that we try to aim and win the last three games, we can’t let the season end like this and we want to put a smile on our supporter’s faces.

“The last three performances have been unacceptable, and we don’t want to go into the summer and next season on the back of a poor end to this season.”