THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen St Mirren -V- Inverness CT PREVIEW 6th January @ 3PM, St Mirren Park, Paisley Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Go to the Chatroom Media Coverage   AUDIO COVERAGE BBC Sportsound BBC Sportsound [UK Only]   LIVE TEXT (ONLINE) Sporting Life BBC    VIDEO SPFL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel   TEAM LINEUPS TO FOLLOW   Tweets by @ICTFC Tweets by @ICTFC

1 nil St MIrren full time. Made a decent fist of it in the 2nd half by all accounts.

Simply not good enough end off!

 

And now a suddenly amazingly improved Falkirk side who beat dundee United 6-1 today to look forward to on Tuesday.... At this rate we'll be on the wrong end of the playoffs 

Seems a bit harsh to criticise this performance against a team at the top of the table and ourselves without a few regulars for whatever reason. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Steady on folks. This is a season of rebuilding and we were very narrowly beaten away from home by the league leaders.

Hardly a disaster.

Agree with above two posts. 

Concerned a bit by Falkirk result today. Plus, Baird being back in starting 11.

4 minutes ago, tm4tj said:

Seems a bit harsh to criticise this performance against a team at the top of the table and ourselves without a few regulars for whatever reason. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Agreed. But some folk love a wee moan regardless.......

1st half pish.

2nd half a bit better. 

Could have scored but a fair result. Could be worse, we could be Dundee Utd.

Decent striker urgently required (22 goals in 20 games) : in with a shout in most matches but lack of firepower is costing us dearly.

Need to turn draws into wins and narrow defeats into draws.

 

Connor Bell looks like a decent striker if he could get off the bench and start some games again.

 

St Mirren’s first choice striker has scored 20 this season.

Our first choice striker is on 3. 

 

3 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

St Mirren’s first choice striker has scored 20 this season.

Our first choice striker is on 3. 

 

Exactly................hope Robbo has his scouts on the road seeking a goal hungry striker looking for a spell in Inverness.....................

We signed one, who then had to go off injured after 10 minutes today............

1 hour ago, Polo Chick said:

Simply not good enough end off!

 

As they say on Wikipedia.... "Citation needed".

59 minutes ago, Kingsmills said:

Steady on folks. This is a season of rebuilding and we were very narrowly beaten away from home by the league leaders.

Hardly a disaster.

Quite...I'm more annoyed that we didn't get 3 points last week against Livvy

The most frustrating aspect of this today is not the result, to be fair given our opposition and location and team we did well to get that, my worry is the fact that we again today had too many "just wide, just over, inches away, straight at keeper". It's this type of thing that's losing us matches and now to add to the worry the one game upcoming i felt we were favourites to win we now look to go into as underdogs. How Falkirk managed to put 6 past DU today is unimaginable and I really pray that was more to do with a "poor" DU side that an energised Falkirk side. If it's the latter, we are in for the biggest battle of 2018 so far. We could be looking right over our shoulders at Falkirk on wed morning and staring into a month of difficult fixtures to keep ourselves slipping into playoffs position

Falkirk had a good day utd had a bad day so what one game doesn't mean they are now the best team ever. We have had similar scorelines in the past but been playing crap. We have competition for places we are a much improved side from the start of the season and continue to improve. Bring on Tuesday and three points. 

1 minute ago, MorayJaggie said:

Falkirk had a good day utd had a bad day so what one game doesn't mean they are now the best team ever. We have had similar scorelines in the past but been playing crap. We have competition for places we are a much improved side from the start of the season and continue to improve. Bring on Tuesday and three points. 

Maybe so, but Falkirk evidently can score goals... Playing good or bad, we play good and still can't score.... Not wanting to state the obvious here but goals win games 

20 minutes ago, CableGuy said:

The most frustrating aspect of this today is not the result, to be fair given our opposition and location and team we did well to get that, my worry is the fact that we again today had too many "just wide, just over, inches away, straight at keeper". It's this type of thing that's losing us matches and now to add to the worry the one game upcoming i felt we were favourites to win we now look to go into as underdogs. How Falkirk managed to put 6 past DU today is unimaginable and I really pray that was more to do with a "poor" DU side that an energised Falkirk side. If it's the latter, we are in for the biggest battle of 2018 so far. We could be looking right over our shoulders at Falkirk on wed morning and staring into a month of difficult fixtures to keep ourselves slipping into playoffs position

Spot on my friend.

As things stand, we are as close to the  relegation play off as we are to promotion play offs.  Very disappointing that we are not at least safely tucked into the promotion play off positions (higher the better given the PL weighted system). Far too inconsistent and struggling to beat teams like Brechin and Dumbarton (no disrespect intended).

 

We have only managed 2 wins against full-time sides this season, which is nothing short of pathetic. The last was in October.

We have no wins at all against the 3 sides we need to overtake if we are to get 4th place, even though we have a much higher wage budget than any of them.

Putting aside the games against a side who are hopelessly out of their depth, we are having a pretty abysmal season. 

Edited January 6, 20188 yr by Yngwie

Good news.....

 

20 minutes ago, Adamskibeats said:

Good news.....

 

That's really good news 

1 hour ago, CableGuy said:

Maybe so, but Falkirk evidently can score goals... Playing good or bad, we play good and still can't score.... Not wanting to state the obvious here but goals win games 

Before today they had only scored 12 all season in the league. 

Decent display in the second half. The less said about the first half the better. Really should have taken something but when your confidence is low it's tough enough without losing your striker after 9 minutes. Trafford could never fill in for Vigurs, but the defence coped reasonably well even without big Coll. The goal was very sloppy though but Reilly finished it well. 177 away fans.

Another frustrating performance from ICT today. The same issues that have been evident on so many occasions this season were yet again on show today. A clear lack of clinical edge, poor play in the final third, lack of width, slow in closing down the opposition and defensive errors leading to a goal. We really do know how to make it hard for ourselves.

St. Mirren were quickly out of the traps and whilst we were able to knock the ball around a bit at the back their forward line worked so hard to close us down we often ended up battering the ball in the vague direction of Austin / Oakley or seeing our shorter passes being pounced on by the Buddies players harassing our every move. A slack ball out of defence by Warren was seized up on by Saints and a couple of quick passes later Reilly burst into the box, delaying his shot leading to Tremarco going flying past him with his attempt at a heroic last ditch tackle, before rifling the ball into the roof of the net. Saints continued to look a threat for most of the first half and they easily cut open our defence with some clever balls in between full back and centre back which left us woefully exposed at times. Our attempts on goal were largely restricted to long range efforts which didn't really trouble Samson. Doran (I think) had a decent chance when he sent a half volley wide of goal. Disappointing to be behind at half time but Saint Mirren thoroughly merited it and they were unlucky not to be further ahead when Stelios cut in from the right flank and sent a cross / shot in which bounced off the bar with Ridgers looking beaten.

Second half was a real improvement from us. When we got the ball down on the floor and passed it around utilising the wide areas (especially when Mulraney came on and Chalmers pushed further out on the left) we started to create some excellent chances. Unfortunately, as seen so often this season, we wasted every single one of them thanks to some limp finishing, some good saves and a bit of luck for the Buddies. Oakley missed perhaps the best chance of the game for us when he somehow failed to turn in a neat cut back from Trafford (again I think) who had raced along the goal line and picked him out just outside the six yard box. His tame effort went straight to Samson. Oakley also wasted a good header towards the end of the game. Bell saw his fierce shot blocked by Samson at close range, Doran curled a shot wide of the post from just outside the area, Mckay headed straight at Samson from a corner and Polworth saw his effort scrambled off the line by Samson.

Saints also had some opportunities to extend their lead in the second half but were often snuffed out by some desperate last ditch defending from the likes of Warren and we looked to get a break from Collum when Ridgers failed to collect a crossed ball dropping it at the feet of a Buddies player who tapped it into the net but somehow we were given a free kick for a "foul" on Ridgers. A very lucky break for us there.

Definitely disappointing to come away empty handed given the chances that we passed up but if you don't take these chances and continue to waste them then we can't complain much. Polworth had a good game for us today although he was at times wasteful with the ball when attacking he covered so much of the pitch both defending and supporting the attack he gets massive respect for his effort. Doran also had a decent game as well despite being subbed. He swanned past opposition players like they weren't there at times. I think he'd be really useful as a number ten playing behind the striker (as many others have said before). Warren had some heroic blocks but was also culpable for some pretty dodgy passes out of defence which put us under pressure. Most players did fine but nothing amazing.

Man of the day Raven spent a fair chunk of the game being roasted by Morgan and was lucky not to be booked on a few occasions after hauling him down. Despite this he also chipped in with some great challenges and blocks at the back and was an excellent support down the right flank when we were attacking.

With Falkirk on Tuesday we need to seriously sharpen up on our finishing. Missing four or five guilt edged chances a game simply cannot go on.

Edited January 6, 20188 yr by RiG