Partick Thistle have been rocked by the news that full-back Callum Booth will be out for around 12 weeks with a knee injury, with Alan Archibald saying they may now need to dip back into the transfer market.

Booth tore his posterior knee ligament in a challenge with St Johnstone keeper Alan Mannus in the weekend defeat at McDiarmid Park.

And with the Jags allowing young back-up James Penrice to go out on loan to Livingston, it leaves the Firhill ranks a little depleted in the left-back area.

“We were finished [our business] last week, but Callum Booth has now done his knee, so we might have to get a bit of cover in there,” said Archibald.

“We were unlucky with the timing. We had just let young James Penrice go out on loan to Livingston the day before and now Callum Booth is out long-term.

“We might look at a six month loan deal or a free agent.

“It’s a blow when you lose anyone like that who plays most games for you. Callum will have a bad game here or there, but most of the time he will be a six or a seven, so he gives us consistency and a lot going forward as well.

“The good thing is that we’ve got Christie Elliott who can move about, we’ve got Stuart Bannigan who can play left-back and Blair Spittal who can play right-back, so we’ve got other options.

“That was one of the reasons we allowed Penrice to go out on loan, we didn’t want him sitting in the stand, we wanted him getting game-time.

“But it now means we might have to go out and get some cover in that area.”

Archibald is remaining calm despite Thistle’s poor start to the league season, hoping to draw on the experience of the last couple of years which have gone in a similar vein.

“We’ve never not won a game in the first four I don’t think, we’ve always got points on the board and we haven’t lost our first game in the last four seasons, so it’s a little bit different in that respect,” he said.

“We’ve not had as many defeats in the first three games, but we have had tough starts before.

“It’s a tough league this year. I don’t think we’ll get away with a big run of poor results.

“Everyone will have a bad run, we’re having ours at the moment, but a prolonged run I don’t think you’ll get away with too much.

“The good thing for us is that even although we’ve got no points, there are teams not too far away from us.

“We need to make sure we get off zero points as soon as we can. The longer it goes on, it eats into confidence. We know that, we’ve been here before.

“We’ll make sure that we’re positive in every game and try to win every game, not just try not to lose the game.

“Obviously we’ve got no points, and you can’t deflect away from that, but there’s been some good stuff in amongst it.

“But we’ve got to find a way to win a game, that’s the bare bones of it.”

It will take an almighty effort to get Thistle off the mark for the season tomorrow when Aberdeen defend their 100% record at Firhill.

But Archibald is hoping that one of his new recruits may come back to haunt the side that deemed him surplus to requirements.

“That happens sometimes, and hopefully Miles can kick on from last week.

“He didn’t get any service last week so it’s hard to judge him on that, and he’s just settled in with the group.

“Hopefully he’ll go on to do well for us and puts his time at Aberdeen behind him.

“When anybody gets let go by a club they probably feel they didn’t get a fair chance there. He only had one or two starts, and in one of those he scored against us!

“He probably feels he has a point to prove, not necessarily to Aberdeen, but to himself to prove that he can do it at this level.

“He done it for Inverness and had a very good season there, and it’s important that we get the best out of him and find a way to get goals out of him.”