IAN McCALL has welcomed Partick Thistle’s decision to bring in a consultant to help repair the Firhill turf after a second league fixture at the Glasgow stadium was postponed this season due to a waterlogged surface.

The Jags are groundsharing with Queen’s Park this term as Lesser Hampden is redeveloped and the pitch in Maryhill has paid the toll of the extra usage as the surface has deteriorated, leading to Saturday’s match against Queen of the South being rained off.

Thistle already had two games rescheduled in the last two months due to Covid, meaning the Championship club will face a heavy run of fixtures during the run-in.

“Anything that we can do to help the pitch [is a good thing],” McCall said. “I’m not sure how much we can do just now, we might need to wait until the end of the season.

“It’s gave us a real problem, there’s no getting away from that.

“There are just certain sides of the pitch that are just really … I’m not a groundsman but I’m not sure what you can do. I hope we get lucky with the weather.”

The Jags fared pretty well the last time they faced such a demanding run of games as they stormed to the League One title last season but McCall revealed that playing so often took a physical toll on his players.

He said: “Last season when we played all those games in such a short space of time and we did really well, we had six players who just could not go and play at Montrose for the game after we won the title.

“Their bodies were gone, completely and utterly. They needed three, four, five weeks rest after that so it did have an impact – luckily we got through it, but it did have an impact.

“It looks like we’ll be playing Tuesday-Friday a couple of times, which isn’t ideal.

“The good thing is we’ve got a small squad but everybody is capable of playing so we can make changes. The last time I made big changes for a game was for Forfar last year [Thistle scraped a 2-2 draw at home while Forfar were bottom of League One] and I got dog’s abuse for it – and rightly so.

“We’ve just got to get on with it. Whether it will impact on our chances for competing in the top two or three of the league – who knows? Time will tell.”

The winter transfer window may have closed at the start of the month for permanent deals but with the loan market open until the end of February, McCall remains hopeful of bringing in a couple of reinforcements to help aid his team’s bid for back-to-back promotions.

The Jags boss admitted there was nothing concrete in the works at the moment but he believes he will be able to add some more depth to the squad by the end of the month.

“Numbers-wise, I’d like to bring in two – one in a very specialist position and another,” he explained. “We’ve just to decide on what we need.

“We’re well covered in all areas but defensively I think we’re quite light on numbers with Darren being out. We’ll keep looking at that.

“We nearly did one last week but it didn’t quite go ahead. I think we’ll have two in by the end of the month and maybe by next week because the games will then come thick and fast.”

Thistle face Inverness in the Highlands this evening and although Billy Dodds’ side have struggled for form lately as their title bid has faltered, McCall insists he and his players will be taking nothing for granted.

“They’re going through a wee tough time just now, seven games [without a win] but Doddsy’s had a couple of injuries to reasonably key players to contend with,” he added. “There are no easy games.”