Ian McCall challenges goalkeeper Jamie Sneddon to become Partick Thistle’s No.1 for years to come after hat-trick of clean sheets

Partick Thistle manager Ian McCall is hopeful Jamie Sneddon can establish himself as the club’s first-choice goalkeeper for many years to come.

The 24-year-old has been in impressive form of late, keeping three successive clean sheets against Dunfermline, Morton and Inverness on route to lifting the club’s Player of the Month award for October.

A product of the Hearts youth academy, Sneddon received high praise from Jags legend Alan Rough last month as he continues to flourish and develop between the sticks.

“I’m absolutely delighted with Jamie,” McCall admitted. “He made a couple of errors earlier in the season and I left him out once. He wasn’t happy, just like any other players are in that situation.

“He’s not had a great deal to do but he’s made a couple of really important saves. One against Dunfermline, when they came back into the game in the last 20 minutes, and then obviously the penalty save.

“I think a lot of goalies make good saves but it’s all the other things he’s been doing – taking the ball, setting up counter attacks, talking well, his positioning is really good.

“He’s looked safe in everything he has done. We couldn’t be happier and we really want him to go on and establish himself.

“If he keeps this run of form up then let’s hope we’ve got a Thistle goalie for the next two or three years.

“Harry Stone is back in training now to hopefully put pressure on him and hopefully he reacts well to that.

“But right at this minute I couldn’t be happier with him. He’s a very popular lad, a very quiet unassuming boy.

“I’m delighted with how well he’s doing and long may it continue.

McCall added: “It’s one of the bedrocks of your team, is a proper goalie and he’s certainly looked like that in the last four or five games.

“You look at the last five games – he didn’t have much to do against Ayr, nothing to do against Hamilton and even in the Morton, Dunfermline games he had one save to make – he did what he had to really well.

“That’s a sign of a good goalie. But he knows he needs to show a level of consistency – and hopefully he will.

“Unlike most teams in the league, we’ve got two young centre-backs and a young goalie. The experience comes in the full-back areas.

“Jamie is talking far more. We’d love him to really establish himself and be Partick Thistle’s number one for the next 10 years. That would be just fantastic.

“Getting a goalie that you trust is a really big thing.”

As pleasing as it has been to see his side keeping goals out at one end of the pitch, McCall isn’t concerned by the lack of goals from his creative attacking players in recent weeks.

A hat-trick of goalless draws has resulted in Thistle slipping out of the play-off spots, four points adrift of Raith Rovers and eight points behind Scottish Championship leaders Kilmarnock.

McCall admitted: “If you’re asking me how we managed 10 goals in two games and then none in three, I’ve got no idea.

“I thought on Saturday against Inverness it was a great point for us because they were miles better than us on the day.

“Doddsy (Billy Dodds, Inverness manager) phoned me on the Sunday and said it was the best they’d played all season, which, considering the amount of games they’ve won, is pretty good.

“The two games before we had chances to win and to score, but I think when you score six goals away from home (against Hamilton) everybody thinks we’re just going to keep on doing it. It’s not like that.

“I’ve been delighted we’ve not been conceding any goals. But I’ve been setting the team up to try and score a lot of goals.

“We were the highest scorers in Scotland up to a couple of games ago. I’ve got no doubts it will come back for us.

“I’m not saying we’re going to score six again but I’m sure we will start scoring goals again.

“It’s getting the two bits of the team to work together, but if you’re defensively sound then you’ve always got a chance to win a game.

“I’ve been reasonably happy with the two full-backs, the centre-backs, the midfielders and the goalkeeper. The front four just haven’t kicked in the last couple of games.

Thistle head for Rugby Park on Saturday to face a Kilmarnock side unbeaten in their last three domestic fixtures.

The Jags crashed to a 2-0 defeat when the side’s last met at Firhill in September and McCall is expecting another tight Championship tussle.

“We’re approaching the game to win it,” he stated. “From day one I said I don’t think there’s much difference between playing Queens or Morton away than playing Killie or Inverness away.

“I genuinely don’t. You look at results and I think there are one or two teams showing a level of consistency now.

“In five league games, two wins and three draws is a level of consistency. If you get a goal in one of them then three wins and two draws gets you into pushing for first or second.

“Killie are favourites for the league and rightly so. They’ve got a good manager and a big squad.

“People talk about the biggest budget, but so they should have after coming down from the Premier League. I’ve no issues with that.

“But if we play at our best then we can match most teams, as I think we’ve shown.”

McCall added: “We’re delighted where we are in the league, considering two years ago we’re bottom of the league and the place is a mess.

“We’re still in the middle of a real build, the whole club not just the first team squad.

“We looked at it the other day, we shouldn’t be top of the league, but we feel we certainly should have 22, 23 points.

“Over the next weeks and months we need to gather those points up because the target like everyone else is to finish in the top four.

“It looks like a split just now – top five and bottom five – but in this league that can change very quickly.”