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<h2><font color="#FFFF00" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">THE MATCHDAY THREAD</font></h2>

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<h2><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Inverness CT -V- Rangers</font></h2>

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<td><div align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">26th Feb @ 12:45PM: Tulloch Caledonian Stadium</font></div></td>

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<h2><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Media Coverage</strong></font></h2>

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<td scope="col"><div align="center"><strong><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">TEAM LINEUPS</font></strong></div></td>

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Deep breath.................AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH

That's better, just needed that. We are like headless chickens, yet we still had a few half snippets that went abegging. The usual crap passing, poor shooting, aimless punts and inability to finish off moves, it's so frustrating it really is annoying.

I thought Hayes would have been a good buy for Rangers. However, I look at him against Kerkar and the Algerian - a bit-part player - looks in a different class. Sure, Kerkar has better players around him but there's been no final ball from Hayes.

Shambolic performance. Was contemplating leaving at half-time until we got our goal. Need a minor miracle to get something from this.

Hayes & Mackay running about like they are wearing stilletoes & Tansey as if he`s got on mountain boots!

I hope they can make me eat my words

Still believing. 50/1 ICT to win, :ictscarf: no, no drink has been taken!!

Yet another TB roasting required at half time to get them going, totally unacceptable and it shouldn't take that too get them motivated and focussed.

Be interesting to see if he makes any changes

Proc on for Meekings........WTF!!!!

Proctor on for Meekings ..... time to go do something else. Why did I get up at 7AM for this !

Oh dear I may have been a bit hasty in putting that bet on, Procter on!!!! :frustrated01:

Top six aspirations????? Our defense wouldn't see us top six in Div 1

Butcher, this ever changing carousel of second rate players scoured from the reserve squads of foreign leagues is getting me down. Give us a settled, organised team who can develop and play together. Fed up with it.

Christ almighty, brilliant pass from Tansey for a change and Hayes miscontrols...........meh

Are our throw-ins getting worse, surely not, they can't possibly.........can they?

A handy free kick, aye right

Do we ever practice these free kicks, just another shambles of a move.

I`m afraid on this showing I would get rid of the whole team & start again from scratch next season - maybe keep Hayes + Ross for the subs bench

not a good day at the office today !!!!!! i think I will leave it at that for now .... Thanks Terry, i really needed to get up at 7am for this pish !

Pass marks for Williams and Esson. Sympathy votes for Tansey, Mackay and Foran for at least trying. Ross, Hayes and Tade - hopeless. Contributed very little of interest. Sutherland and Doran must be looking on hopefully. Tokely has to come back to lead the defence again - either at RB or CB. Doesn't matter. A presence was missed.

Is Terry taking the peesh? OTJ on in 87th min, It was crying out for him in the 1st half!!

I`m afraid on this showing I would get rid of the whole team & start again from scratch next season - maybe keep Hayes + Ross for the subs bench

And maybe a new management team as well.

Pretty poor, however there is a decent team in there somewhere but due to the tactical ineptitude of our management team it's hard to see it. Time to go 4-4-2 Butch!

Well that was sh#te, end of!!

It's one of those games where you just rip it up and move on, we can take nothing positive from that performance at all and the only thing TB should learn from it is that his constant changing of team selections isn't working and we need some leadership and experience at the back.

We've now conceded more goals this season so far than the whole of last season, not good enough by a long way

I have to say.....the football i have seen on show this season....is as dire as anything i have ever seen from an ICT team. Really Bleak...no wonder punters are staying away...they are not being entertained!

It probably was a little optimistic to think that we had a good chance of winning today - that's still a pretty decent Rangers team when you put aside the upheavals at the club - but the ICT performance was disappointing by any standards. Given the fact that so many of our current squad are on short term or loan deals anyway, we won't have much choice but to overhaul the squad for next season, but it's frustrating to think that we could be in this sort of situation for the foreseeable future and possibly never return to the sort of settled, gradually-evolving squad that we had for so long.

Edited February 26, 201213 yr by alternative maryhill

It's been pretty grim being a season ticket holder this season. Only four wins, but dull tactics and mediocre performances in abundance. In the big games against the Old Firm, we've had terrible luck as well. Today was maybe the last chance the players had to produce a big performance and get their names in the papers, as well as give us a rare opportunity to cheer. Last season, against Celtic, the players rose to the occasion.

Today was the complete antithesis of that Celtic match in May.

That was the weakest and most vulnerable Rangers side I have ever seen at TCS, containing several players who couldn't even make their bench last season. And yet they ripped us to shreds whilst barely moving out of second gear. I shudder to think what they could have done to us had they played particularly well.

Not one of the Rangers goals required even a shred of guile or quality - every time it was just one half-decent pass which cut through us like a knife through butter. We were a tactical shambles. I defy anyone to explain what our gameplan was - I simply don't believe there was one. McCoist did his homework and got his attacking players to press us high up the pitch, knowing that we would end up punting high ball after high ball at our 5ft 8in centre forward. When we did get the ball in decent areas, our final ball was almost invariably hopeless in the first half; when we put in a few decent crosses in the second half, our strikers fluffed their lines.

Defensively we were an absolute joke. Could Esson have done better with the fourth? He certainly wasn't culpable for the others, and made one tremendous stop in the second half. Subbing Meekings at half-time was akin to putting down an injured animal. His positioning was terrible and he kept being caught by balls in behind him. His refusal to go beyond the half-way line also meant that Hayes was easily double-teamed whenever he got the ball. As for our other full-back, Graeme Shinnie will have nightmares about Sone Aluko, who just destroyed him. I'm not sure Shinnie managed to tackle him once. Aluko wasn't even that great at Aberdeen; it's galling that he looked so dangerous today. I love Kenny Gillet to bits, but he had a shocker today, to go with a poor performance at East End Park. Williams wasn't great, but he didn't appear obviously responsible for any of the goals we lost, and at least he got one.

It was in midfield that we really lost the game today. Foran was absolutely overrun by Edu and Davis. He got no help from Tansey, who kept giving the ball away even when he wasn't under pressure and who frankly chickened out of several 50-50 balls. What was the point of bringing on Jones with 3 minutes left? Even if he only has one leg, he should be on the pitch from the start. Hayes and Ross tried their hardest but whenever they got the ball they invariably had no support. Tade was utterly wasted out wide in the first half, and only got into it when he moved into the centre.

When McKay got announced as MOTM, I wondered out loud what he'd done to earn that - the response from a guy behind me was that "He's run about a lot". That seems to be fair,and it's a sad indictment of his teammates. To say he fed off scraps would be an understatement. On the rare occasions he got the ball, he had zero support from teammates. I was impressed by the fact he kept trying, even though he bounced off Goian every time.

When was the last time we laid down to an Old Firm team like this? It's not just the lack of quality that worried me, but the lack of fight and the lack of spirit. It's deeply concerning, especially as it's not been the first time this season. I haven't been this disillusioned with ICT since the dying embers of Brewster's second spell. We probably have enough points in the bank to hold off Dunfermline and stay up, but given our recent performances I wouldn't bet my mortgage on it.

As much as I love this club, and as much as I love the banter I get from the folk I sit with, I am seriously questioning the wisdom of renewing my season ticket. £300 a year for this dross? Pull the other one. As far as I'm concerned, the starting 11 and the coach can throw themselves off the Kessock Bridge for all I care.