It was harder to tell what may have deflated Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald more yesterday – another road-trip to Dingwall or what he witnessed when he got there.

Archibald took the long road north on Wednesday night to watch Saturday’s opponents Hearts rack up an impressive 3-0 win over Ross County, despite being without a host of first-team regulars.

As his side have already shipped seven goals to Hearts this season, it was not perhaps what Archibald wanted to see, but while admiring Robbie Neilson’s side he believes that Thistle have enough about them to leave Tynecastle with a positive result.

“I was in Dingwall on Wednesday night, again," he said.

“It was a good performance from Hearts, they’re an impressive team. They look as though they’re nailed on to finish in third position and it was great result up there.

“There aren’t a lot of teams that will score three goals at Ross County, it was a fantastic result with a kind of makeshift side.

“We don’t know what we’re going to be up against because they have various injuries and suspensions, but one thing we do know from Robbie’s teams is that they’ll be organised and well-drilled, and we’ll need to be at our very best to take anything.

“We haven’t really performed against them this season, probably only playing for about 35 minutes in the two games, so we need a much better performance.

“Hearts weren’t at full-strength, they had three of four regular starters missing from the backline, but they strengthened well in January and the likes of John Souttar came in and did well. Don Cowie was really good too, so they’ve had a good window and I think that just shows the quality they have.

“We need to concentrate on ourselves though, and make sure that we perform a hell of a lot better than we have done against them.

“The lad that came on [Abiola Dauda] got a couple of goals and he gave them something different. He’s quick and took his goals well, so they look strong.

“I’ve said to the lads that we’ve got to try and find their weaknesses and take advantage of them.”

Archibald's defender Dan Seaborne spoke this week about how comfortable he felt playing in a back three against Dundee United, and the Firhill boss admitted that a similar set-up is in his thoughts as they look to restrict Hearts’ attacking threat.

“Possibly, the three centre-halves were fit at the weekend and we went with it to try and cope with Dundee United’s directness,” he said.

“It done that, but it took away from our creative edge. We didn’t have enough time to work on the creative aspect of it and we didn’t create enough.

“That was probably down to United playing the same formation as us too and it became a bit of a stalemate.

“It’s something to think about and it’s a tight pitch at Tynecastle, so it might suit us. It still allows us three midfielders on the pitch with two strikers and it gives us the extra man at the back.

“It gave us that bit of cover against Dundee United’s direct play, we just didn’t use the strikers effectively enough and the extra man in midfield didn’t really count the way we wanted."