ROBBIE CRAWFORD admits that he jumped at the chance to be reunited with Ian McCall at Partick Thistle last month as he praised the Jags manager’s influence since returning to Firhill a little over two years ago.

The Glasgow club were staring relegation to the third tier in the face when the former Ayr United manager replaced Gary Caldwell and would be controversially demoted as the coronavirus pandemic brought football to a halt in March 2020.

McCall has wasted little time in stamping his authority on the playing squad and changing the mentality in the home dressing room in Maryhill and it’s for this reason that Crawford – who played for five seasons under McCall at Somerset Park – decided to depart Motherwell on a free transfer during the January window.

“He was a major factor in me coming to the club,” Crawford said of his manager. “I worked with him for four or five years at Ayr and I really enjoyed it. When I got the chance to work with him I jumped at it.

“There is a real togetherness here and I think he’s done something similar to when I was at Ayr. When he came in there were a few cliques, the dressing room wasn’t together. But he managed to fix that.

“From my first three or four weeks here it’s definitely something similar to what he built at Ayr in terms of togetherness and team spirit. He puts a lot of thought into what boys are like, not just as players but as people, too.

“That’s a big part of it. It’s not just whether you are good player or not, you need to be a certain type of person to play under him. That can only stand us in good stead.”

Crawford is still to taste defeat as a Thistle player and with his side hosting Queen of the South tomorrow afternoon, the midfielder is hopeful of maintaining his unbeaten run for a little longer.

“I’ve really enjoyed [my time here so far],” he added. “I knew a few of the boys before I came so it’s been really easy to settle in. Hopefully we can keep winning.

“It was a good win against Ayr in midweek, it was a hard game. The pitch wasn’t great, but we got the goal and saw it out. It’s about trying to build some momentum now.

“With the midweek games a factor now, the games will be coming round pretty quick. If we can keep picking up three points at the weekend then you are bouncing into the midweek matches and that obviously builds momentum.

“Confidence is high at the moment, the boys are believing they can win going into every game and we need to keep building. There are a lot of hard games coming up.”