8 years since the famous "shoes off" occasion. Absolutely awful weather, a 20 minute walk from the pub in gales and rain and the most ill I've ever been at a football match. So who's going?

Works fine for me. Most notable point is that our only consistently good player, Tremarco, has now contracted the sickness bug, whilst Tansey is no better.

7 hours ago, TheMantis said:

January 2009, ICT bottom of the table, more detached than this time iirc. Hamilton take the lead and the ICT fans wave their shoes in the air singing "shoes off, if you hate Brewster" to the tune of "Go West". Brewster was sacked on the Monday and ICT

There are some interesting parallels and comparisons.

2009 and 2017 - bottom of the league and about to play a relegation 6 pointer away to Hamilton.

2017 - 17 points from 22 games

2009 - 17 points from 21 games

 

2017 - 11 games without a win, but a cup win against a lower league side gave a little morale boost.

2009 - 6 games without a win, but a cup win against a lower league side gave a little morale boost. That 6 game run included Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Dundee Utd (3rd in the league back then) and 2 other away games.

 

2017 - fans starting to show concern about the manager, but generally remain right behind him.

2009 - despite us never having been anything other than a bottom 6 side, for the previous 2 or 3 months there'd been a growing campaign amongst fans to get the manager sacked, including an unprecedented meeting of supporters. Constantly slated on this forum, "shoes off" was the culmination.

Funny how things are the same, but different!

Old Caley Girl is making sure we have all smelled the coffee with this excellent Preview.

 

On 29 January 2017 at 8:26 PM, PerfICT said:

Hats (or shoes!) off to all ICT fans who can make it to this. Let's hope the Hamilton fans boycott this one and take away some of the home advantage.

RF needs to really identify who's properly fit for this one. If Drapes and/or Tansey aren't 100%, don't play them (I think Draper's said previously that artificial pitches don't agree with him anyway). I don't say that lightly, particularly in Draper's case, but he was nowhere near fit on Saturday and early returns from injury generally result in further setbacks.

Once he has his fit and healthy team list, then decide the formation that is going to suit the players available. Where there are choices, go with form players in their best positions. For me, Doran is coming into form, so should play, perhaps behind the striker. Raven looked a bit rusty, but quite solid on Saturday, so we have a right back and Mackay did well in the centre, so the back four is good. The real problem remains up front with Doumbouya, Boden and Anier taking it in turns to fail to impress.

Assuming everybody is fit, I think our personnel suit a 4-2-3-1 better than a 4-4-2, but that should remain an oprion if we use fully fit players in midfield (unlike Saturday, when it was full of crocked players!) I'd go with:

Fon Williams

Raven Mackay Warren Tremarco

Tansey Vigurs/Polworth

Cole Doran King

Anier

subs: Polworth, Mulraney, Doumbouya, Esson, Ebbe + U20 defender + Esson

Another option would be to have Tansey as only holding midfielder and put Polworth or Vigurs alongside Doran in CAM. Neither Polly nor Vigurs are natural holding midfielders and Crawford has to be marked out of the game.

RF needs to really get this one right and apply some logic. No square pegs in round holes. No room for error.

...revised suggestion:

Fon Williams

Raven Mackay Warren Tremarco

Tansey Draper

Cole Doran King

MCKAY!!

21 hours ago, Yngwie said:

There are some interesting parallels and comparisons.

2009 and 2017 - bottom of the league and about to play a relegation 6 pointer away to Hamilton.

2017 - 17 points from 22 games

2009 - 17 points from 21 games

 

2017 - 11 games without a win, but a cup win against a lower league side gave a little morale boost.

2009 - 6 games without a win, but a cup win against a lower league side gave a little morale boost. That 6 game run included Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Dundee Utd (3rd in the league back then) and 2 other away games.

 

2017 - fans starting to show concern about the manager, but generally remain right behind him.

2009 - despite us never having been anything other than a bottom 6 side, for the previous 2 or 3 months there'd been a growing campaign amongst fans to get the manager sacked, including an unprecedented meeting of supporters. Constantly slated on this forum, "shoes off" was the culmination.

Funny how things are the same, but different!

2009 - we lost and got relegated 

2017 - we lost and got relegated