IAN McCALL will be hoping his players make it through tomorrow afternoon’s match against Forfar unscathed as the Partick Thistle boss prepares to welcome back a contingent of injured players.

The Jags’ campaign has been severely disrupted as injury has struck, ruling a series of first team players out for weeks at a time and leaving the squad down to its bare bones. However, McCall is hoping that the tide has turned.

On-loan Rangers defender Rhys Breen is expected to train today and be included in Thistle’s matchday squad this weekend and while the trip to Station Park will come to soon for them, McCall expects another three players to regain their fitness ahead of next week’s fixture with Peterhead – with the 56-year-old also promoting two academy players to the men’s squad in the interim.

“Rhys Breen should train [today] and be back in the squad,” he said. “I think [Zak] Rudden, [Blair] Spittal and [Ciaran] McKenna are getting pretty close.

“That’s us down to seven injuries which is still not great but it’s a lot better than what we’ve been used to. By the end of the next week we’re hoping we’ll be down to three or four, which we can cope with. We’ve added two young boys to the squad as well.”

Breen might well to ready to once again enter the fray but the 20-year-old has a fight on his hands to reclaim his starting berth at centre-half. Darren Brownlie is an important player for McCall and is currently one of the first names on the team sheet at Firhill – as is his defensive partner over the last few weeks, Mouhamed ‘Sena’ Niang.

When asked if Breen’s return to fitness meant Sena’s place in the starting line-up was under threat, McCall replied: “No. We think Sena has improved with every game and he’s doing really, really well.

“It’s happened a million times before in football – a young boy comes in, gets his chance and takes it.

“It would be extremely harsh for him to be out the team. In fact, there’s no chance of that happening.”

Another youngster hoping to make the grade at Thistle this term is midfielder Charlie Reilly, who joined from Accies during the off-season. The 19-year-old is yet to start a game for the Jags, making do with the odd appearance off the bench for the time being, but McCall was keen to stress that this is more down to the relative strength of the squad in this area – and the form of Stuart Bannigan and Ross Docherty.

“We really like Charlie and we’ve got high hopes for him,” McCall said. “With the situation we’re in, where almost every game is a must-win, it’s not always easy to throw the young boys in.

“He’s only 19 but he trains with the first team every day. He’s part of the first team squad and rightly so. I’ve got no qualms about sticking him in there.

“Someone will need to do really, really well to displace Docherty or Bannigan. I think they’ve been doing really well and they’re good players. We’re trying to rebuild Partick Thistle and they’re key to it.”

Forfar await tomorrow, and Thistle will be the favourites to return to Glasgow with the three points. Stuart Malcolm's side are currently sitting bottom of the table but after recording their first league win of the season last weekend, McCall is aware of the threat posed by the Angus outfit.

However, the Jags boss saw enough from his players during last weekend’s 0-0 draw with Dumbarton – a game where Thistle created plenty of chances but just couldn’t convert them – to fill him with hope that they can break down the stubborn defence that will meet them.

He explained: “As we’ve seen, every game can be hard. Although we played really, really well against Dumbarton and made an awful lot of good chances, they still presented a challenge and defended well and deep. It was the same against East Fife, the same at Montrose. None of them are easy.

“The type of chances we had on Saturday – I don’t think you can really work on chances like that, it was just one of those days. You look at big Brian [Graham] missing the rebound on the penalty and that just sums it all up, and then he hits the inside of the post [later in the game]. If we play like that again, we’ll be fine.

“Absolutely [we have to play through a deep defence]. Our home record has been really strong – we’ve not lost many goals at home – but there’s just no easy way to win games. However, we’ve got the players that are capable of doing it and to be honest, they’re on a good run just now. We need to turn that superiority into goals at times.”