Alan Archibald believes that Partick Thistle need to steel themselves for Saturday's visit of Motherwell.

Having lost 2-0 to Celtic last night, the Jags are still in danger of being dragged into the relegation dogfight.

Archibald's side are currently four points better off than the Fir Park side but, with Motherwell coming into the game on the back of a 5-0 romp against St Mirren on Tuesday evening, the Jags boss is wary of the threat they will provide - and what defeat could mean.

"It's a reality that we're in the fight to avoid the play-offs and it's been that way for the last five or six weeks," said Archibald. "We've been on a good run but so have the other teams.

"But we've never been away from it. The other two teams below us have been in good form, but so have we so we'll look forward to Saturday."

Thistle will go into that game without James Craigen, whose red card last night means he will be suspended for the game against Well.

Referee Willie Collum dismissed Craigen for his foul on Stuart Armstrong that led to Celtic's opening goal via the spot.

Archibald had no complaints about the decision, but would like to see the law repealed so teams are not punished twice for one offence.

"I've not watched it back yet but at the time I thought it was a penalty," he said. "It's one of those rules that you hope they will change as you get penalised twice, losing a man and the goal.

"As the defender you always think you're going to get a touch on the ball when you make those tackles but in hindsight you'd rather you just go and let them score or let Foxy try to save it.

"So it's a hard one for James as he's been really good in the last few weeks, got himself back into the team and worked ever so hard."

Despite the adverse scoreline, the Thistle manager is looking for his side to take out the positives from last night's encounter.

While they were suffocated at times by Celtic's stranglehold on the game they also managed to hold Celtic at bay until the penalty decision broke their resistance.

"It's always hard here with 11 men, never mind 10," said Archibald.

"But I was proud of the lads and the way they organised themselves. Their shape was good as it has been in the last three or four weeks when we've had a lot of clean sheets.

"Tonight we kept our shape and discipline even with 10 men. We wanted to make chances.

"It's just disappointing as we thought we had done the hard bit in the first half.

"We had got over the first 10 to 15 minutes and they were starting to take shots from 25 yards."