Partick Thistle defender Paul McGinn admits that the Jags are already in a dogfight, and will be until they pull themselves clear from the bottom of the table.

Thistle have encountered tough fixtures to date, and have failed to record a win in their eight league games so far, but a kinder run – at least on paper – now lies ahead of them.

That starts with Saturday’s home game against the only side below them in the table, Kilmarnock, and McGinn says that getting a result by hook or by crook must take precedence over performance.

“We all realise that this period is massive now,” said McGinn. “I suppose if we had turned a few of those draws into wins it wouldn’t be as big, but you can’t deny that until you get those points on the board you’re in a dogfight, and that’s the way you’ve got to approach it.

“If you think anything else, you are just being naïve. Once we get the points on the board then we can start looking up the way.

“Any team that finds themselves down the bottom, that’s the way they’ve got to approach it, and right now winning counts more than the performance.

“It’s good that aside from the Motherwell game, we have been playing well, and that gives us faith that the wins will come.

“But, I’m sure everyone at the club would take a horrible performance to get a win.”

And doing that horrible side of the game is something that Thistle have been working on during the international break.

The Jags players were disappointed to have been outfought by Motherwell in their last game, and McGinn has vowed that it won’t happen again.

“Anyone who was at the game at Fir Park would see that Motherwell won all the second balls, they were right on top of us and we were off the pace,” he said.

“If you are going to have that throughout the team and they are on it as they can be, then that’s the way the game is going to go.

“We’re not going to be able to play nice football all the time, we will have to roll the sleeves up at times or we will be in trouble.

“So, we have worked quite a bit on that dirty side of the game as well. We have to make sure we compete.”

Despite the poor run of results and now being moved out of position to the left flank, McGinn is enjoying his introduction to life at Firhill.

And he thinks that it is only a matter of time before the team on the field, like the club off the field, are heading in the right direction.

“We seem to have a curse over our full-backs just now,” he said. “When I came in, Christie Elliott went over to left-back and I couldn’t believe how well he did. He just took it in his stride and he did very well.

“He’s ended up doing his ankle in and that’s a shame, but now I need to try and do what he did and take it in my stride.

“So, not only have I joined a new team, but I’m playing in a new position! But I’ve been enjoying it. I think it’s a good club and it’s well run.

“Aside from the Motherwell game, I think we’ve played quite well.

“I think that’s a concern that people have about Thistle, that we play well and don’t get enough results, so we’re trying to put that right.

“A lot of the boys have been at Thistle quite a while and the management team have, and they’ve been through spells like this.

“There’s no panic, we all know it will come as long as we keep working hard at it.”