Stevie Lawless pleased to be staying at Partick after Inverness interest
Partick Thistle playmaker Stevie Lawless insists there will be no regrets when he lines up against the club that wanted him.
The 25-year-old was heavily linked with a move to Inverness but spurned the advances of former Caley Thistle boss John Hughes at the end of last season when he decided to stay put at Firhill.
Richie Foran is now in charge at the Highlands outfit and takes his new charges to Glasgow for their first Ladbrokes Premiership fixture of the new campaign on Saturday.
But Lawless has not spent the past few weeks wondering what might have been had he decided to make the move north.
He said: "I have no affiliation to Inverness. Obviously there was a bit of talk about me going there but I'm still a Thistle player and it's now just another game.
"It's wasn't nice at the time when I was sitting during the summer not knowing what was happening with my future but once I spoke to the club here we managed to get things sorted and that was the most important thing."
Alan Archibald's side failed to win any of their opening 10 games last season but Lawless considers them already up and running this term after winning all four of their Betfred Cup group games.
"We managed to get a bit of momentum build up during the Betfred Cup so now it's all about taking that into the Inverness games," said Lawless.
"We want to get off to a good start, which we didn't manage to do last year."
Archibald has not ruled out having skipper Abdul Osman, who missed the cup games with a knee injury, but Ryan Scully (thigh), Stuart Bannigan (knee), Mustapha Dumbuya (Achilles), Christie Elliott (groin) and Gary Fraser (knee) remain on the sidelines.
Gary Warren wants Inverness to get off to a flier at Firhill.
The Highlanders went eight games without a win at the start of last season until a 2-0 home win over Hearts on September 11.
The 31-year-old defender recalled a fine 4-1 win over Thistle in Maryhill last April as Inverness ended the season in better form and with a 7-0 thrashing of Arbroath and 5-1 demolition of Dunfermline in their previous two Betfred Cup matches, he is hoping Caley Thistle retain that threat for the trip to Glasgow.
"We look at the start we had last season and the amount of injuries we had, it wasn't ideal for us," he said.
"So if we can try to get off to a good start this year, and see where it takes us from there.
"It is always tough at Partick.
"We had a good result towards the end of last season, I think that was only our second win there in four years so it is always a tough place to go for us.
"But as a team, if we carry on as we left off especially in Saturday and midweek then we are in with a good shout.
"But it is a tough place to go. It is the first game of the season, it will be frantic, so I think we will have to wait until the game settles down a little bit before anything happens."
Aaron Doran could make his first appearance in a year at Firhill after stepping up his recovery from a knee injury, while defender Josh Meekings is back in contention for Richie Foran's first league match in charge after a knee injury of his own.
Back-up goalkeeper Ryan Esson is still short of match sharpness after groin trouble.
Source: PAR
