Alan Archibald is keen to add more pain to hurting Aberdeen as Partick Thistle head north to the Granite City with a spring in their step.

The Jags celebrated Christmas by moving off the bottom of the Ladbrokes Premiership table with a hard-earned victory over Hamilton Accies at the weekend.

While Thistle were battling to victory in Glasgow’s West End, Aberdeen were suffering a 3-0 defeat to Celtic in the top-of-the-table encounter in the East End.

In the lead up to Christmas, Archibald’s men claimed a morale-boosting 3-2 win over Motherwell but then went down meekly to Dundee a couple of days later at Dens Park.

The Thistle gaffer is looking for his players to carry the fighting qualities they showed on Saturday into tomorrow’s fixture at Pittodrie and give Aberdeen a real run for their money.

Archibald said: “We don't want a negative performance. We have to go there with the right attitude. We know we can hurt Aberdeen and we have to go there and play.

“It will be a tough game. Derek (McInnes) has got them going again. I watched them against Hibs and they were outstanding. We will need to be at our best. But we have Jordan Turnbull coming back and Martin Woods got another good 60 minutes under his belt against Hamilton so at least we have a couple of choices with our team. Pittodrie is a tough place to go, but we will go with a bit more confidence after getting three points."

Thistle’s Miles Storey will be returning to Aberdeen after a largely unfulfilling stint in a Dons’ shirt but Archibald insists the English striker doesn’t have a point to prove against his old club.

He added: “We tried to get Miles before he went to Aberdeen. He missed a year of football and I think he only started one game for Aberdeen and that was against us and he scored. Other than that he was always on the bench. I don't think he has a point to prove. I think the season before at Inverness he was very good and scored double figures so it's about giving him a platform. It's good we have got options."

Thistle still have a lengthy injury list but some of the long term casualties, like Abdul Osman and Mustapha Dumbaya, are showing signs of a recovery and Archibald is confident of some good news heading into the new year.

He said: “Abdul got the okay from the surgeon the other day so that's the first training he's done this week. We might get him for Ross County at the weekend, but it's a big ask. Other than that, Callum Booth is back running too. Young James Penrice is on loan too so he will be back and Mustapha Dumbuya is coming back as well. So it is like having four new players potentially.

“That might affect our activity in the transfer window because we started looking at full back targets because we have been so short. Steven Lawless, Blair Spittal and Jordan Turnbull have played there and none of them are full backs. We just need to check they are ok and fit to play or we would have had to sign another full back, and that would be our fifth."

Meanwhile, Hamilton boss Martin Canning reckons plenty of teams will be looking over their shoulder as Thistle kept things bunched up in the relegation dogfight with victory over his troops.

Canning, whose side face in-form Kilmarnock tomorrow, said: "I don’t think anyone is out of it, I think it will be a tight, tight scrap. You saw how quickly it can change. If we won against Thistle we would have gone nine ahead of them and now it's only three. Killie are five ahead of us, but if we beat them then it is down to two and that makes it tight again.”