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St Johnstone -V Inverness CT


Scotty

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I agree bughtmaster though its dissapointing losing a goal right at the end we seem to have played well without our strongest team and must give hope to all those who were feeling a bit blue after last week, Wednesday will be a big game now would be great to get a first win of the season

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Well, that was a kick in the teeth at the end. What would have been a well deserved confidence boost just eludes us.  Stats for the game indicate that we were well in control, so with a makeshift side, I think the overall performance must have been OK.  Looking forward to reading comments from those at the game.

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Hard one to take conceding the late goal but as others have said we would have taken a point before the game.  The team played some good stuff and hopefully once we get a few more players back we will compete strongly again.

The players deserve great credit to bounce back from last week.

 

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Just home from game.  I think we'd all have taken a draw at 3pm given half the team was missing, but it was a bit of a sickener to lose a late equaliser after such a great team effort, and we should really have had it sewn up ages before.  Really pleased with the team, and the youngsters that were brought in couldn't really be faulted. Has to be said though, that Saints were pretty awful. They only started to get a bit closer to our goal in the last 20 minutes when it was evident that a few of our guys (eg Mutombo) had nothing left in the tank. Big improvement on last week.

MoM was probably Christie, a wise head already, along with skillful feet, but Devine also did a great job and Williams displayed great energy and tackling.

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Well done to the lads today. Always frustrating to lose a late equaliser, but a massive improvement on last week from a very depleted squad. Sounds like there was an attacking plan today, with Christie and Lopez in partnership. Hope for the Partick game!

 

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It's a sickener to lose a goal and two points late on, but with an unrecognisable defence and a new attack, two men short on the bench, it sounds like we played well, great to score a goal and secured a point at a difficult place to go

So pretty satisfied, well done Caley

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Felt a wee bit robbed at the end. 1st half was good. Polworth and Christie were top dogs in 1st half. Good quick acurate passing from a makeshift, but effective defence and most of midfield. Cracking save from Williams was all he had to do, bar a couple of punches to clear corners, and waste time at goal kicks, to the annoyance of the Saint J fans. 2nd half, ICT seemed to be playing within themselves without any great threat except for hitting post and couple close shots from Devine and Christie(who was unfairly booked in last minutes. After we all thought Collum had lost his cards!!)  Sutherland looked a real livewire when he came on, scared the bits out of the St J central defenders with his pace. Pretty good display overall...for a team of 9 men!!
  Mutombo gets the benefit of the doubt, due to being in need of match time(but, he didn't beat many with ball at his feet, scared of a challenge, and, apart from 1 attempt on half time, looking for the glory touch or shot) Lopez? WTF!  Some folks were telling me this was a big improvement from him, by god, he must have been diabolical in previous games. 1st touch, tackle, passing, pace, runs are somethings missing from his game today( apart from 1(ONE) through ball). looks as unfit as myself. It was noticable that other players seemed shy of passing the ball to Lopez and Mutombo,. I can't see what Lopez offers as a lone striker.  But I have been wrong before. 
 

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Well done to the lads today. Always frustrating to lose a late equaliser, but a massive improvement on last week from a very depleted squad. Sounds like there was an attacking plan today, with Christie and Lopez in partnership. Hope for the Partick game!

 

The attacking plan you mention must have missed Lopez. He really was terrible today. Thought Polworth had a very good game, but in the end we certainly threw away two points

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listening to OAM i get so pi$$ed off when they always go on about our crowds  So what its  not as if we are the lowest supported team in the league but for some strange reason its always us they gurn about Even slating off the fact we had 5500 at astra game, should someone tell them that buses go down every week to watch their beloved Weegie teams and their very own media biase helps contribute to the problem

Anyhow seems like we are playing well hopefully we can hang on for the last quarter of an hour

My thoughts as well and it was Barry Wilson!  No mention of under 3000 in Perth today:blink:

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Well done to the lads today. Always frustrating to lose a late equaliser, but a massive improvement on last week from a very depleted squad. Sounds like there was an attacking plan today, with Christie and Lopez in partnership. Hope for the Partick game!

 

The attacking plan you mention must have missed Lopez. He really was terrible today. Thought Polworth had a very good game, but in the end we certainly threw away two points

....was going by limited reports from bbc online. Sounds from those at the game that Lopez still doesn't have it! Delighted for Polworth! If Sutherland could be trusted up front instead of Lopez, we'd have 3 home-growns in the team.

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I'm up at 6 tomorrow so just to echo what Yngwie said, after all he was sitting next to me and writing down all my comments :lol:. I thought Christie was immense. Lopez could have had a strike with his left but dithered and had to pass it to Christie who scored from a tighter angle. Really should have had that game sewn up as Saints were woeful.

cant really see what Lopez is going to offer us although hoping to be proved wrong - well off the pace required in this league, caught in possession etc, but we were all loyal enough to give him a standing ovation when he went off. Mulombo has a bit of promise. Danny Devine is now turning out to be a real asset.

horner and polworth were decent and slotted in no bother. I don't have any worries about us facing the drop this season. Interesting to see if County beat this lot on Wednesday.

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Well, I'll take the point, even though it should have been three. 

Plentyvof positives today - I thought that the team was set up pretty well. The defence was reasonably solid. I thought that Draper looked good at centre back, and kept thing simple. 

Polworth and Horner had good games, although Horner seemed to get a nose bleed every time he got too far forward. 

Christie took his goal well and very nearly had another, but his distribution went to pot in the last 15 minutes. 

Lopez and Muotombo had some nice touches, but it did feel like I was watching them in slow motion. To be fair Lopez seemed more involved than when I saw him in the two games with Astra, so hopefully as they get more fitness and game time they will improve further. 

If we could have finished more clinically, then we would have won that easily. Saints were terrible up until the last 15 minutes, and even then they weren't that good. 

And less than 3000 fans? Guess they were either bringing in the harvest or clearing Morrisons of milk. 

Almost forgot - thought Ali Sutherland looked good when he came on. His pace seemed to scare the living sh!t out of those cart horses Wright and Scobbie. 

Danny Devine is now turning out to be a real asset.

horner and polworth were decent and slotted in no bother. I don't have any worries about us facing the drop this season. Interesting to see if County beat this lot on Wednesday.

Agree pretty much with all your post, but these two bits are worth commenting on. Devine seems to have benefitted greatly from regular game time and I've been impressed with him so far this season. 

I think you are probably right about the drop, but I'd still like to see us convert a bigger proportion of our chances. 

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Question - would you have taken a point today before the kick off ?

Yep, definitely. It always takes a few games of any season before we start to get a real sense of how good our opponents are, but games at McDiarmid have generally been pretty difficult for us, and given our injuries and lack of any cutting edge in the last few games, I was really encouraged by how we played yesterday - thought we were the dominant and more creative team.

As a few people have already mentioned, Christie, Horner, Polworth and Williams all had excellent games. When I've seen him on previous occasions, I've never been impressed by Polworth, but yesterday he was consistently looking to make forward passes and bring Williams and Christie into the game, rather than simply passing it around in our own half. I was surprised by Hughes' decision to drop Wedderburn yesterday, as he'd started the last few games and seemed have been following the possession-first philosophy to the letter, but I wonder if Hughes actually feels that Wedderburn was a bit too careful and unadventurous in those games - certainly the build-up play yesterday was a lot more dynamic than it was in the two games against Astra and, apparently, in last week's game. I liked the look of Williams at left back again too - thought he did fine there in the first leg against Astra, and yesterday he looked pretty solid defensively (although the cross for the equaliser did come from that side - I'd need to see it again to see if he was at fault) and got forward really well. In pre-season, a few posters suggested that he could be developed into a natural successor to Shinnie, and on the evidence of yesterday, there's no reason why not. I think I'd prefer him to Tremarco in there.

Unfortunately, as people have already mentioned, Lopez had another mostly-ineffectual game. Hughes obviously sees something in him, but to me, so far, he looks ponderous - he seems to lack pace and movement so doesn't really create opportunities for good out-balls or get beyond defenders, he doesn't release the ball quickly enough when he is in possession and under pressure (although he does deserve credit for playing Christie in for his goal yesterday), and for a pretty big guy he seems to go down too easily. It's still early days, and obviously a lot of our best attackers in the past got off to slow starts with the club, but at the moment he doesn't look like a spearhead-type player. Mutombo looked more promising - he had some nice touches and looks like he will be capable of taking on and beating players - but he drifted in and out a bit yesterday, and his choice of final ball wasn't always great. Encouraging, though, to see us bring in a player who might offer us another attacking dimension.

Obviously it was deeply frustrating to lose the goal so late yesterday, and to see Cummins given so much space after an otherwise pretty solid performance at the back from Draper and Devine, but overall, there were grounds for optimism about this much-changed team. Just hope we can push on against Partick in midweek ahead of the trip to Celtic Park, which we probably shouldn't expect much from.               

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Just watched the highlights.  Christie was amazing.  He could easily have had a hat trick. At least we created a few chances in this match, so I'm a bit more encouraged than I was after the 3 Astra / Motherwell games.

A good win with a few goals against Partick should boost our confidence.

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Lazy C n P from P & B:

The two main changes that altered the game for me was when Saints went two up front (Draper and Devine left a lot of space in between them which Sutton alone couldn't exploit but they struggled when you had an extra man up there) and also when O'Halloran switched to the ICT left side. He hadn't gotten into the game much against Raven and Horner (normally a right back I think) but when he went up against stand in left back Danny Williams and the still to gain match sharpness Mutumbo he got a lot more freedom and carved us open a number of times down that side.

ICT were probably the better team in the first half (although we didn't create a lot of good chances). Second half we started sluggishly and Saints were on top before we should have made it 2 - 0 when Devine had a shot off the post (I think) and Christie forced Mannus into a tremendous save. After that Saints really upped things and it was desperate defending by ICT towards the end. Lovely cross for the goal and a cute little header from Cummings past Fon Williams.

I would have taken a draw beforehand especially given the players we had out but it was massively disappointing to see us lose a goal so late on that cost us two points. We had a habit of losing late goals last season as well. Hopefully this can be cut out.

Best players for ICT for me were Christie, Williams and Devine. Christie tired towards the end but some of his touches were outstanding. Shinniesta Mark II if you will. Williams did fine filling in at left back and was able to offer some support down that side in the first half but he struggled against O'Halloran when he was switched to the ICT left. Devine has always struggled to get games ahead of Meekings and Warren but he always looked like he could be a useful player and he turned in a pretty solid performance at the back.

Really need to be looking to take three points against Partick on Wednesday.

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I wouldn't say its massively disappointing to drop 2 points but pretty much spot on with the rest.

The slate is wiped clean from last season and its good progression from last week.

We also have outfield players and new signings proving their worth which is promising. 

Its still early in the season so I'm not expecting too much too soon

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