Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald last night expressed sympathy with his fired Motherwell counterpart Mark McGhee - and admitted it could easily have been him that was getting the bullet earlier in the campaign.

Archibald’s upwardly mobile Jags will be aiming for a third league win a row – and a fourth in all competitions – when they face an equally buoyant Dundee at Firhill tonight.

It wasn’t that long ago that both Thistle and Dundee were propping up the Ladbrokes Premiership but now they are fighting it out for sixth place in the league with just a point separating the seventh-placed Jags from the sixth-placed Dark Blues.

Back in October, Thistle moved out of the bottom two, and left Dundee three points adrift at the foot, with a 2-0 win at Dens Park.

Both sides have since clambered their way up the standings and Archibald is well aware that the fine margins and fickle fortunes of football could easily have left him in managerial peril.

He said: “I do feel for Mark. It’s disappointing when you see any other manager losing their job. I like Mark. I spoke to him after we played and he would always have words of wisdom for you. I appreciated that coming from an older manager than me.

‘It just shows you that football is crazy. He was top six last year and they were still more than capable of getting top six this year. Ranieri’s sacking just highlighted it too. It’s just madness to go from that extreme to losing his job.

‘Mark will probably feel like that as well because he is not cut adrift by any manner of means. He was still in a decent position to get back up the table.

“But it could be any of us. The last time we went up to Dens, Paul (Hartley) and I were both at the bottom of the league. I think it was Paul’s name up at that point and he was under pressure.

“A few weeks later, it was me at the bottom of the league and getting a bit of stick. We have all taken a turn of it. Thankfully, our club stuck by me and we’re now in a better position than we were.

“I have got an open relationship with the board. They don’t say I have a free run of the place and can afford to keep losing games. It’s not like that.

“But we have open dialogue all the time and we know where we both stand. We know the remit of the job. I have a good relationship here and long may it continue.”

Thistle have been boosted by the return to action of Sierra Leone defender Mustapha Dumbuya in recent weeks.

And the 29-year-old has praised his good lady for helping him stay sane during the mind-mangling period he spent on the sidelines with an Achilles injury.

Dumbuya said: “It was the worst injury of my career and the longest I’ve ever been out.

“I just had to stay focussed and keep looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. I had good people around me, especially my Missus. She always said ‘you’ll get back, just take time and make sure you’re ready’.

“Being injured is hard mentally. Every day you have to do your rehab but it’s how mentally strong you are which determines how strong you come back. I’ve been at clubs before where I’ve been going home alone a lot. Just sitting there myself, you think too much and worry ‘will I come back the best?’ Here I have my Missus with me and that takes the mind off it.”