He has taken his time to find his first goal at Partick Thistle – but Zak Rudden is thrilled to put a stop-start 12 months behind him in Jags colours.
The striker joined from Rangers in January 2020 on a permanent deal, however, injury and two league shutdown have limited Rudden’s chances at Partick Thistle. But he finally opened his account this week in Scottish Cup action against Cowdenbeath during a 3-0 win that sets up a third round tie with Dundee United.
While he knows that full fitness is still to come, Rudden was pleased to get the monkey off the back: “Finally, it’s only taken me a year to score a goal! I’ve been injured a few times while I’ve been here but I’m delighted to finally get a goal and hopefully I can kick on from here. It was annoying that I kept getting injured as soon as I came here.
“I played two games and then I’d get injured and then I’d come back, play a game and get injured again. Not scoring when I was coming back was getting a wee bit frustrating for me and I think that maybe showed in the game at Falkirk [when he was sent off for dissent].
“Over the break, I worked hard and tried to get myself back to fitness. Obviously, you can’t get back to normal fitness without playing actual football but I feel like I’m not far off and hopefully, a few more games and goals will help me get more confident.”
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