THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Alloa Athletic -V- Inverness CT PREVIEW 27th October 2018 @ 3PM, Recreation Park, Alloa 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

Oh dear Oh dear!! what's the bet it is the same starting 11 next week

Edited October 27, 20187 yr by Polo Chick

County humping Morton helps us this week. They are banging in goals for fun. God help us next Saturday. Can see us getting humped by 3 or 4 goals. 

FT...... another disappointing draw. With County winning 5-0 today..... I fear for next week. They are scoring for fun, we can’t find the net !!!!!!

Another frustrating afternoon. It's getting close to the point where County will be out of sight as far as automatic promotion is concerned.

I can honestly now see us finish the season with fewest, or even no, defeats and least goals conceded and still not make a play off place.

Someone needs to impress upon those managing and coaching the team that the object of the exercise is to win games not merely to avoid losing them. The fact that we are on such a long unbeaten run is looking increasingly hollow and irrelevant.

Grim!! ICT are going backwards....from Score draws to NO scoring draws. This is all going to cost them come the end of the season

Dropped down to 5th now 7 points adrift of county and 6 of Ayr. Something needs to change up front.

Summer football? Friday night football? No.

Fecking boring football is the name of the game for us!!!!!

How long is Oakley out for? He seems to be the ONLY one who knows roughly where the goals are

No money, crap team, clueless coaches. Fecking exciting time being an ICT fan. No wonder only 12 turned up on Thursday night. 

6 minutes ago, cif73 said:

We ... need ... a ... decent ... striker!!

Dont we just! 3 on the pitch and still cant score drawing 0-0 to Alloa is nothing short of shameful

Our 'strict fiscal discipline' does not lend itself to having a sought-after striker.  Captain is 33, vice-captain is two months from being available to clubs, sponsor is leaving, stadium naming rights gone unsold, solidarity and parachute income now well in the rear mirror and a exodus of 1000 fans since our last period in the Championship (a decline over a six year period...).  Now we are out of the playoff positions.  Need some good news and money - huge infrastructure at the club that needs Premiership money.

I think Ross County and Dundee Utd will be in the top two, we have to muscle QotS or Ayr out but need our own Dobbie and Shankland.  Need to get a loan or two come January, JR doesn't like them, but unless Austin/Oakley can dazzle in the next 10 games...

 

Back to hating 4.45pm on Saturdays. 

This is getting utterly ridiculous. We need a loanee or out of contract striker fix now!

Makes it worse when Billy McKay rattles in a hatrick for County.

41 minutes ago, Row S said:

This is getting utterly ridiculous. We need a loanee or out of contract striker fix now!

Makes it worse when Billy McKay rattles in a hatrick for County.

He will probally get one next week too 

2 hours ago, Caman said:

No money, crap team, clueless coaches. Fecking exciting time being an ICT fan. No wonder only 12 turned up on Thursday night. 

A bit harsh although lack of finance can't be an entire excuse.

Ayr United managed to unearth a prolific striker on a budget less than ours who propelled them to one promotion and may well take them to another.

Livingston, fresh from league One last season, achieved promotion to the Premiership on a budget lower than ours and with crowds considerably lower than ours and look very like retaining that status even this early in the season.

We really must start being more positive and taking more risks, maybe both on and off the pitch, if we are going to make progress.

Not for the first time in our last 2 games, it has been quite apparent to me and all the people around me that we just aren’t going to score many goals with White as the striker. I’ll be diplomatic and say he is “not the most technically gifted” player, of which we’ve had many before such as Graham Bayne, but White doesn’t compensate for it with other attributes (eg pace, work rate, positioning, good in the air etc). Change needed upfront, and until Oakley returns Austin looks a livelier and more threatening option.

Not that it’s all White’s fault. Shots at goal today from the rest of the team were mostly pretty woeful efforts.

Worth mentioning that Alloa have narrowed their pitch to a ridiculous extent, so there was no width to play with. It was really catching our players out, a defender would take the ball out of the box and 2 strides later was at the touch line, with balls upfield and passes in general going out of play far more often than usual.

Grim reading I'm afraid but it reflects the state of the club. The money is simply not there to be able to bring in the quality needed to get this club back into the Premiership.

Looks like we will just have to go with what we have, and has been said already they are not really up to the job. The defence is holding up, but our lack of finances is showing up our wafer thin fragility.

3 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Worth mentioning that Alloa have narrowed their pitch to a ridiculous extent, so there was no width to play with. It was really catching our players out, a defender would take the ball out of the box and 2 strides later was at the touch line, with balls upfield and passes in general going out of play far more often than usual.

Apparently we were aware of it and trained accordingly 

19 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Not for the first time in our last 2 games, it has been quite apparent to me and all the people around me that we just aren’t going to score many goals with White as the striker. I’ll be diplomatic and say he is “not the most technically gifted” player, of which we’ve had many before such as Graham Bayne, but White doesn’t compensate for it with other attributes (eg pace, work rate, positioning, good in the air etc). Change needed upfront, and until Oakley returns Austin looks a livelier and more threatening option.

Not that it’s all White’s fault. Shots at goal today from the rest of the team were mostly pretty woeful efforts.

White does not have what it takes. That has been very apparent for months now. The only one who can't seem to see it is the manager. White is certainly no Graham Bayne who made up for any lack of natural skill by being one of the most hard working and committed players in our entire history.

A truly arctic experience at the Indesit, sorry Indodrill  gazebo this afternoon. Apart from a couple of years in the noughties, the Recs has never been an easy place to visit and so it proved. Alloa have been stuffy and hard to break down this season but they have what we lack (sorry, ONE of the things we lack) - a bit of pace on the break. They actually got down both flanks and got crosses in. They were the better team by a distance in the first half.

Second half we dominated the possession as Alloa appeared to just want to hold what they had, but it was the usual overplaying, square balls from big Joe, and a lacklustre Polly trying to make a telling pass. Welsh was almost decent, but Doran was invisible again and Walsh just appears too lightweight most of the time. Calder slotted in reasonably well when Tremarco went off, but Brad continues to be a bit of a bombscare. We could have lost it late on when the Jambo rattled the bar with Ridgers a spectator. Apart from one season with Livi, Jordan White has never scored goals. The white Doumbaya. I’ve never felt that Daniel Mackay was quite ready for this level any time I’ve seen him, and I can understand Robbo giving him some game time, but what about winning the match?

With Coll our talisman back, I think we’ll do a bit better next week than some are predicting, but scoring goals looks beyond us at the moment. Even if big George makes an appearance he’s never going to be match fit. Truly dire, dire times for us.

Edited October 27, 20187 yr by TheMantis
Fecking autocorrect

I don’t think the team is massively worse off that anyone else overall but we do lack a goal scorer and atm it is costing us places and losing us ground on the leading teams. Obviously dunfermiline on Tuesday is big in terms of giving us confidence going into the weekend. People think we will be battered next week but I don’t think we will as we have the best gk and best back 4. Defensively we are as strong if not stronger than anyone else in the league. Robbo needs to find a new set up to allow us to score more as we can’t keep it going as it is and hope we can nick games. Big week ahead 

That was pish. We are pish.

Utterly dire again this week. All well and good keeping clean sheets but we are absolutely woeful in the final third and Robbo's substitutions are frankly mystifying in the face of irrefutable evidence that his first choice striker is not up to scratch. A carbon copy of last season when he stuck with Baird for way too long when it was patently obvious that he wasn't the answer. Praying that Oakley is fit soon and back amongst the goals.

Worth noting that Alloa had the very decent looking Daniel Zanatta, on loan from Hearts, giving our defence a tough time of it today. Meanwhile Jambos legend Robbo managed to acquire the services of Angus Beith as part of he Mulraney "deal". Rather sums up our season. 

I fear the worst next week.

 

Edited October 27, 20187 yr by ymip

Not much point having a goal scorer in the pitch if we, erm, don't create goal scoring chances. 

That was dire today. Narrow pitch or not players like Doran and Walsh failed to provide any meaningful chances for White who is unfairly getting pelters on here. He really doesn't have much to work with most of the time. He's the kind of striker that plays with his back to goal so coming up against a team like Alloa that sits very deep he isn't going to get a lot of opportunities to score. We never stretched the play, we never managed to attack with any kind of pace or incision that allowed us to get in behind the home defence.

We were just meh all over the park. MacKay probably had the best chance for us when, in the second half, he gambled on a ball being played in and Parry rushed out smartly to smother the shot. Aside from that we were desperately poor.

Forget about County next week, we've got Dunfermline on Tuesday night first. Let's focus on that.