matchday thread Hibernian -V- Inverness CT

[Alex MacLeod]

Tansey on second yellow so likely out of replay. D. Williams, Draper, Roberts, Mutombo, Devine, Polworth and Warren all on one card

[AlexJones]

7 minutes ago, CaleyHedgehog said:

I'm definitely going to the replay not least so that I don't have to listen to this biased rubbish from the commentary team. When Hibs got their goal they all cheered  and laughed, but when Inverness got their goal there was silence. Come no Caley Thistle, show them why you are the cup holders. 

The absolute nadir was when they started gloating over the `extraordinary` Leanne Dempster. What a load of tosh.

[Ten4]

10 minutes ago, davieB said:

Our first instinct always seems to be pass backwards and we keep gifting the opposition opportunities.

Fair enough if we had players capable of possession football, but we don't, and that's why they're playing for us and not at a much higher level.

When we play more direct we look a far better team, as proved with the equaliser.

Only problem with what you have just stated is that we scored fro a 10 pass move!

[RiG]

Dreadful from Inverness today. That 3 at the back did not suit us especially with Tremarco charging out at every opportunity to go after the ball. Defensively we were poor as exemplified by that free kick in the first half when we didn't even bother to mark Mcgeouch. How Hibs never scored from that I don't know. As with recent games we had started not too bad but quickly regressed into our now familiar pass it sideways, don't go forward style which is tedious to watch. Great play from Hibs to open the scoring but I can't help but feel that, having quickly watched the game back, that we should have been tracking Keatings. It looked like Tansey just ran away from him having followed him into the box.
 
It wasn't until Horner came on and he decided to try and overlap a team mate to try and give us a wee bit more drive down the flanks that we came back into it. Horner did really well to get to the ball and dig out a cross, lovely touch from Roberts to lay it off to Mutumbo who seemed to take an eternity to get his shot away. Great scenes in the Inverness end when that went in. Scarcely deserved but still celebrated like it won us the cup. Storey should have scored with his chance not long after but it was a poor scuffed effort.
 
Pleased to somehow be in the competition but I am very concerned about how the team is playing right now. After a bright start we were shambolic for the next 60 minutes. Only a rare piece of direct, pacey attacking play got us back in it and that's maybe a message for Hughes given his apparent love for this pedestrian style of football which is at times dire to watch.
 
Thought we had an excellent away support down for the game. Meant to be around 800 - 900 which was far in excess what I thought we would have taken. Hopefully the replay is on TV as there's no way I'll get up for it. Shout out to for Crawford Allan who was garbage and the main stand linesman who somehow missed a Hibs player leathering Roberts with a kick in the second half. Some laughable decisions in that game. Also getting pretty fed up with some of the antics of our players. I'm probably blinkered but I don't remember seeing us being so niggly as we have been in recent weeks and throwing ourselves to the floor at times. Don't like seeing that from ICT.

[Yngwie]

Did anyone else briefly go "Aaaargh!" when Mutombo took a touch instead of taking it first time?

[PerfICT]

18 minutes ago, RiG said:

Dreadful from Inverness today. That 3 at the back did not suit us especially with Tremarco charging out at every opportunity to go after the ball. Defensively we were poor as exemplified by that free kick in the first half when we didn't even bother to mark Mcgeouch. How Hibs never scored from that I don't know. As with recent games we had started not too bad but quickly regressed into our now familiar pass it sideways, don't go forward style which is tedious to watch. Great play from Hibs to open the scoring but I can't help but feel that, having quickly watched the game back, that we should have been tracking Keatings. It looked like Tansey just ran away from him having followed him into the box.
 
It wasn't until Horner came on and he decided to try and overlap a team mate to try and give us a wee bit more drive down the flanks that we came back into it. Horner did really well to get to the ball and dig out a cross, lovely touch from Roberts to lay it off to Mutumbo who seemed to take an eternity to get his shot away. Great scenes in the Inverness end when that went in. Scarcely deserved but still celebrated like it won us the cup. Storey should have scored with his chance not long after but it was a poor scuffed effort.
 
Pleased to somehow be in the competition but I am very concerned about how the team is playing right now. After a bright start we were shambolic for the next 60 minutes. Only a rare piece of direct, pacey attacking play got us back in it and that's maybe a message for Hughes given his apparent love for this pedestrian style of football which is at times dire to watch.
 
Thought we had an excellent away support down for the game. Meant to be around 800 - 900 which was far in excess what I thought we would have taken. Hopefully the replay is on TV as there's no way I'll get up for it. Shout out to for Crawford Allan who was garbage and the main stand linesman who somehow missed a Hibs player leathering Roberts with a kick in the second half. Some laughable decisions in that game. Also getting pretty fed up with some of the antics of our players. I'm probably blinkered but I don't remember seeing us being so niggly as we have been in recent weeks and throwing ourselves to the floor at times. Don't like seeing that from ICT.

Agree whole-heartedly with RiG. That was embarrassing for long periods today. When Hibs scored, I was almost relieved that football was winning the day - whatever we were playing, it wasn't football. One shot on target ffs?! We are simply the most boring outfit to watch. Possession for possession's sake is tedious and ultimately dangerous. Today's tactics seemed to be a horrible mix of keep the ball at the back until the Hibs defence was organised and then thump it long for Roberts or Storey to be caught offside! Don't get me wrong - delighted to be in the draw, but Hibs were mugged - we played well for 10 min at the start and 5 min around our goal. Otherwise, without Draper's energy we would have been thrashed.

This style of football is doing my head in! Football is about creating chances and scoring goals and we do neither. One thing is for certain - employ those tactics in a relegation dogfight and we're gone. Get it sorted.

[Jaggy666]

Pathetic performance! bullied all over the park and shambolic defending, didn't deserve a replay.  Becoming very concerned we'll be in a relegation battle.

[Biggin]

Why was Polworth playing in the full back position rather than Horner  he had an absolute disaster of a game. After bossing the 1st 10 mins went missing to give what is by far the worst performance I have seen for a long time carry on like this and we will be in deep relegation trouble. only after Hibs scored die we pick it up a bit and what an improvement when Horner came on.

I gladly take the draw but in Honesty Hibs were robbed and deserved to be in the semi final draw

[Ronaldo]

Out of jail indeed,

What gets to me is with this obsession with possession is that when we gets two thirds up the pitch with it no one has a clue what to do next. I would love to be a fly on the wall in the  changing room. 

Possession is fine if you have a plan when you get into the danger area but we seem to be clueless and iam going to scream the next time we get into the opposition box and another blxxdy pass is made. A good example of this was Liam Polworth early on, shoot for fxxxks sake!!!!!! 

This leads to my next point, I am sure we have a goalkeeping coach and ones who specialise in defence but have we got a striking coach I ask myself...........

I give up, thats two goals in four games and I have a feeling that the points we need for safety are going to be very hard earned indeed.

And finally, we must not surrender our place in this league as we have got out of jail once when we dropped down and we are dreaming if we ever think this will happen again should we ever be relegated.

Roll your body sleeves up boys and sort it out!

 

 

 

[alternative maryhill]

The official Twitter account described this, on 88 mins, as 'one of the most even games of the season'. Nice to be positive, but I really can't agree. In common with most posters on here, I thought we were clearly second best for all but the first 10 mins and the last 10-15, when Hibs were clearly tiring. Admittedly, Hibs closed us down well, but too often our players seemed reluctant or scared to make runs that would allow the ball to go forward on the deck, which meant that the tactic for much of the game seemed to be to pass the ball horizontally in our own half umpteen times before hoofing it forward to Storey, whose attempts to play the Hibs offside trap were pretty lamentable. The way this ended up inviting play back onto us didn't do players like Devine and even Tansey any favours, and I'm quite relieved that we ended the game with 11 players, as we committed a lot of niggly fouls and had a referee who was willing stop the game for almost anything. When Horner came on, I said to a few people that I thought he might present a threat going forward, although he wouldn't do anything for our stability at the back, and so it proved. I'd really like to see what he could do wide right in a traditional 4-4-2 with Raven behind him, but I don't imagine we'll see that this season.

Funnily enough, for all that negativity, I do have a hunch that we'll make the semi-final now, but everyone who has said that we are likely to be fighting against relegation for the rest of the season is correct, imho - that's now three games in a row that I've watched us look second best for three-quarters of a match and create next to nothing in terms of real threat, and that's pretty unsustainable in terms of getting points on the board. Hopefully we now go and put three past St Johnstone on Wednesday and make me look like a total dick.

Great support for us today, btw, and good crack in the Iona beforehand. Shame it's a school night.              

[lightwelter]

A poor performance, but we managed to grind out a result and have a good chance of getting to the next round. Their record against us is terrible, especially in Inverness. 

As Yogi would say, we weren't "at it" today, and the only players I would pick out as having a good/semi-decent game were Warren, Williams (both keeper and outfield) and obviously the subs. I'm not convinced Tansey and Vigurs can play together as they're too similar, both could be labelled as "deep lying playmakers" and don't have a huge amount of athleticism. I also thought Roberts and Storey offered very little.

I was shaking my head when Horner was brought on, but he did really well and was always looking to get forward. While he's too lightweight for the SPL and get's caught out defensivly, he definitely gives us something going forward and he's a good player to bring off the bench.

I wouldn't be too disheartened at the performance. It looks like we're lacking in a bit of confidence and form, so to be scrapping out results whilst not performing well can't be a bad thing. Huge opportunity to get to another final with Dundee United in the next round! 

 

[tm4tj]

Thought Miles Storey was lucky to stay on the park. He flicked his leg at the defender then confronted him as if he was going to nut him. He needs to stop the petty fouling and get back to scoring goals.

[Ten4]

From Fon Williams goal kick to Mutombo hitting the back of the net we actually had a reasonably impressive 16 passes !

[KirkieRobRoy]

Quote

Did anyone else briefly go "Aaaargh!" when Mutombo took a touch instead of taking it first time?

Oh, yes. Yes indeed.

 

Like everyone else, disappointed, but if we need a replay to dispose of Stirling Albion, not surprising that we need the same with Hibs. Hopefully they'll either be depressed, or have overcelebrated, after the LC Final when the replay comes around.

Hopefully we can then dodge the Billy McKay banana-skin, and in the final face an ordinary Celtic team (who will surely dump the taxdodgers in the lesser semi-final) and make up for the recent loss at Celtic Park.

[Naelifts]

..........and what a difference the aforementioned player made when he came on. I think he should have been on much earlier. Vigurs is the one who is pissing me off just now . He was a real prima donna today; on more than one occasion stopping, putting his foot on the ball, pretending he had all the time in the world to pick out a pass and before he knew it..........he had been dispossessed by a laughing Hibs player. I think that he thinks he is better than he is . i have news for you boy..........you're not! Roll your sleeves up and lets see you play some incisive, creative football We know you can do it

[Kingsmills]

I agree with much of what's been said on this thread.

Firstly, it's only fair to give the manager credit for a timely and effective double substitution. Within minutes of being brought on the substitutes combined to score what was a cracking goal.

However, I am not sure that Yogi deserves too much more credit for today's largely dire and, sadly recently typical, ineffective performance, The goal apart, our only other notable contributions to the game were Fon William's terrific double(or was it triple) save after the avoidable stramash in our six yard box and then his even better effort at tipping Stokes's goal bound effort onto the post.

That apart we are very fortunate to be still in the Cup. Even the best managers make tactical errors, the trouble with Yogi is that he doesn't seem to learn from his. He made precisely the same mistake as he made at Ibrox in the League Cup last season in treating what he alone perceives to be a 'big' lower league team with far too much respect and, had Hibs had a wee bit more fortune in front of goal Mutombo's effort would have been a mere consolation.

Hibs are a lower league team, they had been on a horrendous run of form haemorrhaging goals yet until our equaliser had not once tested their 'keeper. Once again, when we were forced to be more positive and direct and only then we looked dangerous and could even have nicked it in the end but that would have been grossly unfair on Hibs.

Even with our injuries we have the players to stay in the Premiership and perhaps even sneak into the top six and give ourselves a fighting chance of retaining our trophy. On the other hand, if we continue to play as we did for 70 minutes of this match relegation is a distinct possibility and we have no chance of progressing further in the Cup.

 

Edited March 6, 2016 by Kingsmills

[ict247]

Biggest mistake today was tactically.

Yogi started with a 3-5-2 shape that looked to cut out playing through the midfield. This resulted in passing between the back three plus keeper before aiming long passes into the channels for Storey and Roberts to chase, hold up and allow the 'advanced' midfielders to get forward and support. Although this worked well for the first 10 minutes, winning several corners, it quickly went wrong as Hibs pressed us high up the pitch and stopped our back three having any kind of out ball. I have only ever seen us play this way once, away vs Partick Thistle last season where it didn't work, and it certainly didn't work today.

Tactic 1 (3-5-2):

Fon Williams

Warren Devine Tremarco

Tansey Vigurs

Polworth Draper Williams

Roberts Storey

 

Worryingly, it took Yogi 70 minutes until he recognised change was needed. Credit where credit is due though, the subs changed the game for us and we looked much better thereafter. We moved to our favoured 4-2-3-1 and suddenly the defence had more time on the ball and could pick out shorter passes and play through Tansey and Draper. For example, Horner took a Hibs player away, creating room for Warren to move into who played a good pass into Mutombo in the build up to our goal.

Tactic 2 (4-2-3-1):

Fon Williams

Horner Warren Devine Tremarco

Tansey Draper

Storey Mutombo Williams

Roberts

 

In my view, we're very fortunate to still be in the cup but we'll take it. Theres a great chance for another cup final but Yogi needs to find a system that gets us looking more dangerous without opening up at the back too much. For me, Storey isn't the centre forward that we can use in a 4-2-3-1 and the sooner we get Fisher back fit, the better.

[qwerty11]

I reckon Yogi's thinking was; 'we've looked a little flat since beating Aberdeen, let's try something different tactically.' Didn't really pay off today. Lucky to still be in the cup. Today was probably Storey's worst performance for us - certainly as bad as I've seen him. Thought Roberts did okay but Draper and Warren were standouts again imo. Great atmosphere! The dream lives on! 

[Robert]

Today was the first game I have managed since County at New Year due to work.

I thought we started well, with the early corners, but within 10 minutes Hibs had settled and were the better team until well into the second half.

Only after the subs came on did we get on top, and after Mutombo's goal We were the more likely to win it, but I'll take a draw.

Polworth as a sort of right back didn't work, and disappointed with all the midfield and front players apart from Draper. In my book, only he, Fon Williams, Tremarco, Warren, Devine and the subs deserve much credit.

Hopefully we have 6, or at least 4, more points in the league before the replay. I can make Saturday's game so fingers crossed.

At least the Hampden dream lives on!

 

[Caley Mad In Berks]

Well, just got back to sunny Berkshire.  Can't say I enjoyed our performance, but thank goodness for Mutumbo.  He was the only one whose inclination was to go forward and he was a real handful for the Hibs defence.  Surely he should be starting from now on.  We've certainly got a lot of work to do to make certain of no worse than 10th place in league., not to mention the cup replay.  Kind draw for us if we get through replay. A real chance for another final, but we'll have to do a lot better than today.

[DEANO96]

Pretty disappointed that we couldn't beat hibs yesterday! I don't think they deserved to win but neither did we! Hopefully we'll get the win next wed and another trip to hampden!

i was disappointed with most performances but polworth had a shocker and merited being taken off! The 3 at the back didn't work great even if it did mean both Williams and polworth could get forward more...most of the game they were sat 25 yards from goal! Storey also had a shocker, and his current for is becoming more than a worry! The rest of them, bar draper and warren, looked either nervous and un-interested! 

Have to say though, Hughes got his subs spot on this time round! Horner should've played in polworth a position with polworth in vigurs place from the start! Mutumbo though has been different class when coming on in games, he totally changes a game in our favour and hopefully he can get more starts and do it in 90 minutes! 

Anyway, roll on Saturday...3 points now an absolute must otherwise we could be in serious trouble! 

[Kingsmills]

37 minutes ago, DEANO96 said:

Pretty disappointed that we couldn't beat hibs yesterday! I don't think they deserved to win but neither did we! Hopefully we'll get the win next wed and another trip to hampden!

i was disappointed with most performances but polworth had a shocker and merited being taken off! The 3 at the back didn't work great even if it did mean both Williams and polworth could get forward more...most of the game they were sat 25 yards from goal! Storey also had a shocker, and his current for is becoming more than a worry! The rest of them, bar draper and warren, looked either nervous and un-interested! 

Have to say though, Hughes got his subs spot on this time round! Horner should've played in polworth a position with polworth in vigurs place from the start! Mutumbo though has been different class when coming on in games, he totally changes a game in our favour and hopefully he can get more starts and do it in 90 minutes! 

Anyway, roll on Saturday...3 points now an absolute must otherwise we could be in serious trouble! 

True to say that Polworth did not have his best game but that was entirely due to him being deployed in a role to which he is neither used or suited.

[caleyboy]

1 hour ago, Kingsmills said:

True to say that Polworth did not have his best game but that was entirely due to him being deployed in a role to which he is neither used or suited.

To me we started with 3 at the back, Warren, Devine and Tremarco. Polworth was in midfield where he should be comfortable. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[alternative maryhill]

36 minutes ago, caleyboy said:

To me we started with 3 at the back, Warren, Devine and Tremarco. Polworth was in midfield where he should be comfortable. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I saw it like this as well, with Warren on the right, Devine in the middle and Tremarco on the left of the back three. However, Polworth was deployed as the farthest right of our 5 midfielders, which I don't think suits him as well as a more central role, and as the first half wore on he did find himself having to cover the right back position as Hibs dominated and kept us in our own half. If we were to try that formation again, I'd actually like to see Horner in that role with Polworth inside him, as Horner looks more like a natural winger, but I do think that this would make us very vulnerable at the back.  

[Stirling Observer]

Yup, with a back you can't allow any of the defenders to push forward at all really. One recurring problem was the lack of midfield runners.  Guessing polwarth will take tanseys position so hopefully we can play a more attacking minded player in wide midfield. Before the replay I'm really hoping vincent, meetings  are available and mutombo gets some game time. Can anyone confirm its just tansey suspended for the replay. 

Hibs in Spain focusing on their cup final. It's a good time to play them. We're lucky to have a second chance after that performance. Let's take full advantage of the opportunity presented. Profitable and winnable semi final awaits the winner