SCOTT FOX was left disappointed that he and his team-mates failed to seize their opportunity to lift Partick Thistle off the foot of the Championship table in the wake of their 1-1 draw at home to Ayr United on Friday night.

Brian Graham gave the hosts the lead in the first half but Alan Forrest’s controversial penalty after the interval ensured a share of the spoils in Maryhill – and another week in tenth place for Thistle.

“That’s the way it goes when you’re at the wrong end of the table,” said Fox. “But we’ll take encouragement from the performance, it was better than last week and the week before. We know we’re in a dogfight so we just need to see what happens in the other games and go again next week.

“It’s still a tight league, we know that. If you put a run together you can do this or that. But the main job is to take it a game at a time and get three points as soon as possible.

“Ayr are a really good side. They’re a good team and they know what they’re good at. But we controlled the majority of the game. The ref has had one and has gave them a penalty. That’s his decision but we need to score when we’re on top.

“I’m definitely disappointed [we didn’t win]. It’s one of those things that just happens. I was hoping we would score at the end, we had a couple of corners and we were pressing them more but that’s just the way the game works. We defended well as a team. Hopefully we can build on this.”

The Jags have failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their 23 league fixtures this season, and have recorded just two in all competitions this campaign; one arrived against Penicuik in the Scottish Cup, and the other against Connah’s Quay Nomads in the Challenge Cup.

Naturally, it is a run that Fox is determined to bring an abrupt halt to. But the Thistle keeper says that he would be happy to ship four goals a game if it meant his side could win.

“Of course, if you keep clean sheets you don’t lose games,” he added. “We just want to win games. I’ll take a 5-4  as long as we get three points. That’s the main thing.

“I think you always do [look out for other teams’ results] at this end of the season. You need to look after yourselves and we had a chance to move off the bottom but it’s one of those games where you can’t dwell on the result, Ayr are a good side and anything can happen in this league.”