THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen St Johnstone -V- Inverness CT PREVIEW 3rd December @ 3PM, McDiarmid Park, Perth Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Go to the Chatroom Media Coverage AUDIO BBC Sportsound Open All Mics [UK Only] TEXT ESPN BBC Sporting Life   VIDEO SPL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel   TEAM LINEUPS Tweets by @ICTFC Tweets by @ICTFC

Terrible result. I could accept a defeat there but sounds like they cruised it. We shouldn't panic yet by any means but Richie needs to change something as we can't keep shipping so many goals. I'm all for attacking football but there needs to be some balance.

Shave your beard Ritchie, it's having a negative impact on our season!

Any Saints fan or neutral may well conclude today that ICT are a bunch of uncultured thugs, incapable of playing football, or defending, or attacking. They might also conclude that we are the worst team they have seen this season, that we are getting relegated and that the league will be better without us.

And based purely on today, it would be hard for me to disagree.

Deep in the mire now I fear.   Disappointed in Warren for it seems that indiscipline is more prevalent in his game these days.  He has sailed too close to the wind several times re red cards for my liking and it caught up with him today.  A shame, as I really like him and feel he still has plenty to offer if he can control himself.

Need a couple of wins under our belt before the New year to regain a bit of confidence.

30 minutes ago, Scotty said:

we should not expect to lose to St Johnstone .. Celtic yes, Aberdeen perhaps, but we should always go into a match with STJ with high hopes as we should be evenly matched. 

Ordinarily, I would agree with you, Scotty, but the combination of injuries, poor form and suspensions ahead of this one did not inspire confidence! Hamilton next week is altogether mor winnable, but have we got it in us to turn this around? Richie's problem is that injuries and suspensions have robbed him of any sensible flexibility in shape or personnel. Personally, I don't think he can play Tansey and Vigurs together and I would drop Draper into a defensive midfield role.....only he can't because Warren is now suspended, so Draper will have to play in defence. Meanwhile Polworth is also out injured, so Vigurs and Tansey have to play. Not easy!

Pains me to say it but Gary Warren was a complete liability today, and I was saying that long before he got either of his 2 stupid yellows.

In the first half Saints players waltzed past him numerous times, including at the goal. It looks like opponents have identified his lack of pace as a weak link, and the only way he can stop attackers is to foul them, hence the 2 yellows.

It's a real shame, he was immense for us when he stepped up from part time football, find of the century. Sadly now, he is all heart but nae legs.

Cue - Sweetie rustlers chastising

My first game of the season if we do not change things we are going down 

Awful. Just awful. Can't believe Gary has a contract for another 2 seasons after this.Ideally  he should be hanging up his boots. Maybe kept on as a coach. He can't play at this level any more. Although I suppose we may not be at this level anyway.

Edited December 3, 20169 yr by TheMantis

If the supporters can see it why can't the manager? We will see how the defence performs without him. You can't win games if you concede goals, Paul Hartley decided to change the emphasis having lost his two strikers and it's paid dividends. I said last season in defence of Hughes he won us many points despite injuries and suspensions just by the way he set up the team and our style of play. The supporters didn't like the style of play, are you enjoying it now?

2 minutes ago, wynthank15 said:

If the supporters can see it why can't the manager? We will see how the defence performs without him. You can't win games if you concede goals, Paul Hartley decided to change the emphasis having lost his two strikers and it's paid dividends. I said last season in defence of Hughes he won us many points despite injuries and suspensions just by the way he set up the team and our style of play. The supporters didn't like the style of play, are you enjoying it now?

Beats me who is going to play in defence next week. We already had Draper at CH today. What's the story with Raven and McKay?

2 minutes ago, TheMantis said:

Beats me who is going to play in defence next week. We already had Draper at CH today. What's the story with Raven and McKay?

If they are both out, Horner will be free from suspension so presumably will be right back, with Meekings and Draper in the centre.

Why was Tremarco subbed? Hopefully not an injury. Is young Gilchrist a left back? If so, Tremarco could be alongside Meekings freeing Draper for midfield.

Sounds like we were very poor today. Hopefully we regroup and get a result next week. Our last point was over a month ago!

Dare I say if after being shot down last time I did, but next week does look like a "must win". 

Warren has looked shaky this season, but he hasn't been helped by having a player who can't tackle and who has no pace - Iain Vigurs - playing ahead of him in deep midfield all season. I understand the thinking behind playing Draper further forward earlier this season, but why on earth Vigurs has consistently been preferred to Polworth in the centre when both have been available is completely beyond me and is, imho, probably the most significant factor in using having the worst defensive record in the league. It was shown again with the opener today, when Craig seemed able to just stroll onto the ball, completely untroubled.

I'll defend Tansey to some extent against the criticism he's getting - I thought he put in a decent shift today, although he did misplace a few passes and overhit a couple of balls. Also, he, and Cole, and King, all seemed absolutely incapable of getting off a shot today: in the period from about 25-40 minutes where we had most of the possession, we did play some OK stuff, but whenever we got to about 20-25 yards out, whoever was on the ball just seemed to want to move it across the front of the Saints defence rather than trying to work an opening or testing the goalkeeper. It's possible, I suppose, that Foran had told then to try to get in closer rather than firing off the sort of speculative 35-yarders that we saw last week, but it felt like almost the opposite extreme today.

Obviously we have been pretty unlucky again with injuries recently, but given the lack of penetration we have up front, the lack of dig and pace we have in midfield, and our woeful defensive record, there's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be among the favourites to go down.       

Hope we have all had a smell of the coffee. It's getting more difficult every week to see where a win is going to come from. If we did not have that unexpected win at Motherwell we would be cut adrift by now.

We need a drastic improvement or we will see standing at games sooner than we thought.

 

Absolutely depressing stuff today. Struggling to think of any real positives at all. We were shocking at the back, had no real control in midfield and struggled to create much of note up front. Our sole tactic of lobbing it towards Doumbouya was easily handled by Anderson and Shaughnessy. With no Plan B Saints rarely looked troubled and ended up with a deserved win. First goal was really poor tracking of Liam Craig who burst into the box and was found by Maclean and the ball was quickly poked beyond Fon Williams. Second came from a free kick which wasn't cleared and Davidson turned the ball in whist the third came late on with our makeshift defence all at sea and Swanson danced inside what was left of it before finding the net. 

Sending off seemed justified. I can't remember the first yellow but it was a warranted second yellow and Warren had struggled for most of the game to deal with Swanson running right at him. Whilst our players seemed to take a touch of the ball to get it down and kill the forward movement Saint Johnstone continuously looked to attack and get forward. We had a lot of the ball but any time we got into the final third we couldn't break down the Saints defence and just passed the ball or ran across the edge of the penalty area before either shooting wide or passing the ball out for a throw in. It was similar to some of the toothless displays under Hughes last season.

Five red cards in the last eight games in Perth. State of that.

Referee was laughably bad.

Edited December 3, 20169 yr by RiG

It's quite mystifying to be honest. Every time I see them at Inverness they look like the worst team in the league, yet we crumble practically every time we go to Perth.

No sign of injury, I think it was just a case of the game being over as a contest and giving Gilchrist a wee bit of game time as he may be needed soon given our lack of defensive options at the moment.

Never seen him before, but he happears to have the physique of a solid defender.

12 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

No sign of injury, I think it was just a case of the game being over as a contest and giving Gilchrist a wee bit of game time as he may be needed soon given our lack of defensive options at the moment.

Never seen him before, but he happears to have the physique of a solid defender.

Seen him a lot in the Dev league, and is solid, pacy, decent pass on him, and very vocal. I liked the bit of pace and forward thinking movement that wee Ali provided too. 

Id like to see the youth given a chance in the coming games...why not? If nothing else, they would show some will to win and hold on to that place in the team...

today was disgusting. Toothless. Depressing. And predictable. I'm not gonna get on Richie's back yet, but things need shaken up a wee bit. Too predictable. 

Well that was worth a trip. Looks like we are in the festive mood early gifting St J the game. Meekings was exposed at RB with a lack of cover from Warren and general lack of pace, was obvious that we'd loose goals from the first St J attack.  Vigurs fir much of the game was his usual self wanting to play the quick release pass and avoid responsibility with Draper in defence he needed to step up and take control more, Cole has energy but lacks the vision and ideas at this level.  yet again panicked clearances and high balls to Doumbaye which was easy for the defence to deal with - all in very predictable as said. Overall tactically poor and below par player display which allowed a St J team who created little to score 3 goals and have and comfortable win without much challenge. Very poor.

 

 

Edited December 3, 20169 yr by bdu98196

2 hours ago, Robert said:

If they are both out, Horner will be free from suspension so presumably will be right back, with Meekings and Draper in the centre.

Why was Tremarco subbed? Hopefully not an injury. Is young Gilchrist a left back? If so, Tremarco could be alongside Meekings freeing Draper for midfield.

Sounds like we were very poor today. Hopefully we regroup and get a result next week. Our last point was over a month ago!

Dare I say if after being shot down last time I did, but next week does look like a "must win". 

Tremarco was hobbling shortly before going off. Another injury worry? 

1 hour ago, RiG said:

Struggling to think of any real positives at all.

 

Positives for me from today:

1. I thought Draper did well in defence.

2. I got a free ticket so didn't have to pay to endure that sh1te.

3. Had a free £5 bet to use and stuck it on St J.

4. Short journey home for me, and got back to find that at the school Xmas fete my wee girls had cleaned up on the bottle stall - Famous Grouse x2, Smirnoff, Sauvignon blanc, Port and some beer! 

You will be drowning your sorrows then Yngwie 

Indeed! Basically it's been a good day spoiled only by ICT's dismal performance.

5 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Indeed! Basically it's been a good day spoiled only by ICT's dismal performance.

Enjoy! I cant find any positives unfortunately...lol 

Lots of disappointment and fear for the future here ... but we are still the only league team to have taken points off Celtic. It just seems that when we are bad, we're awful. I wasn't at the game today. My son's primary school supplied ball boys to Borough Briggs so I took in Elgin's demolition of Montrose ably assisted by man of the match, ex-ICT Shane Sutherland. As someone who trekked down to Alloa (with family in tow) midweek early season for the League Cup horror show, I fear all the ingredients may be set for another humbling cup upset if we don't pick up our ideas over the next few weeks. Given some of the songs I heard today, some of the good folks of Elgin may be thinking the same thing.