THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Stirling Albion -V- Inverness CT PREVIEW 18th July @ 7:45PM, Forthbank Stadium, Stirling Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Go to the Chatroom Media Coverage   AUDIO COVERAGE ?   LIVE TEXT (ONLINE) Sporting Life BBC    VIDEO SPFL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel   TEAM LINEUPS TO FOLLOW   Tweets by @ICTFC Tweets by @ICTFC

Always appreciate trustworthy onlooker comments on newbies Chris. My concern was that FCZ was just another walrus. Hopefully he is given game time to develop. We also appear to be relying on the Big 5 experience base of

Warren - Mackay

Polworth - Vigurs - Draper

Hopefully we have the fullbacks not overdoing the wing-back style and having the pace to cover back in more traditional full back style.

My concern is about how we play the three in midfield. We seem to have the same dilemma as last year, even without Tansey. We have to make that threesome a consistent but effective unit. In the Championship I can see Vigurs in the role of playmaker yet, like Tansey last season, he needs to be 20 yards further up the field to produce the killer touch. I have never liked Draper deep as he tends to drift forward, as does Polworth. Draper, to me, is most effective in the no 10 role but then who defends the midfield. Are we falling into the trap of trying to accommodate those three at the expense of a more solid, wider system. Are we looking at the Championship as being don't concede and hit on the break ?

Last year this was a game we would have lost so i am taking a positive from that. 

We had 20 shots which is good but with so few threatening the goal this maybe means we shot a little too early or didnt have composure

I think I will really watch the defense and ridgers on saturday to see how much better the comms are from last season. No ofw  news yet so looks like he is frozen out if he doesnt leave. Another clean sheet against falkirk and i will be happy.

Then let the strikers gel.

3 hours ago, ictchris said:

Lots of sense.

That post from Chris covers a lot of the main points from last night. Completely agree that Calder and Chalmers should swap if they are both playing down the left flank again. For a while Chalmers was playing on the right side of midfield last night and looked pretty ineffective. When he switched back to the left he looked strong defensively but struggled to really get any crosses into the box when attacking. Calder looked like much more of an attacking threat when he went down the left side but was lazy at times when trying to get back to defend.

Polworth will be hung out to dry if he continues to be played as a wide midfielder. Hopefully another wide player is being targeted along with an attacking central midfielder to try and provide us with a bit of spark in the final third (so many clichés). We struggled to break down the Albion defence last night with most of our chances coming from long balls forward. A Ryan Christie or Andrew Shinnie type player would have been extremely useful. Even a Doran type figure behind the strikers if not wide to relieve Polworth.

Zschusschen did okay but missed an easy chance when Baird cut the ball back from him and he somehow skewed a shot wide from about 6 yards. Hopefully with some game time he will get up to speed. Seedorf did well for most of the game and Vigurs also impressed but wasn't necessarily anything extraordinary. Draper looked increasingly lost as the game wore on. The penalties were probably the highlight of the game simply due to how awful they were. 

Everyone has to call Riccardo Calder Jim, pass it on.

One thing that puzzled me was when Mulraney came off and Chalmers came on, it was a like for like swap.  Calder (who had a much improved game) looks far more of a winger than Chalmers and why we didn't slot Chalmers into left back and then Calder on the wing was very strange.  We seemed to switch to a 4-3-3 at times in the second half as well, with Chalmers are one of the strikers.  Bizarre!

On ‎19‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 8:38 AM, Caley Mad In Berks said:

Be patient?  I think the club (and fans) have been extremely patient.  This is a player who has only started a game for us 26 times in the past 3 full seasons.  Obviously  no one wants him to compound his injury by coming back too soon, but I don't think anyone has shown a lack of patience with him.  Just the opposite, many clubs would have cut their losses and released him a couple of years ago.

Very harsh. Doran didn't asked to get injured and was injured (two different injuries) while playing for us. JH did not play him in as many games as he should have and RF used him very sparingly. If he fails to come back from this injury then we can look at cutting him free but a fit Doran is a huge asset to the team, more than can be said of some of the guys we have signed recently.