THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Inverness CT -V- Dundee Utd PREVIEW 15th December 2018 @ 3pm, Caledonian Stadium 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

Another season in this league will see attendances drop away further.

Nope Robertson and co have to up their game in the second half of the season, cannot keep using the budget excuse forever. 

If you are taking players north you basically get what you are paying for. We need to start the likes of Roddy on a regular basis and take them off when appropriate. We don't have a sugar daddy to keep happy by playing in the top league and we certainly don't have the infrastructure to comfortably play there. Let's face it, we are a mid table championship club so lets become a nursery  for young talent and get on with it.

Edited December 15, 20187 yr by caleyboy

That was very disappointing,  After Robbo's claims in the weeks press how they (players) are working on breaking down defences, We see no progress has been made.

He claims Utd used stifling tactics to hold on against county but we would work on getting behind their defence, yeah?  Didn't see much evidence of either today.

We played pretty well,scored a goal then for the remains of the first half struggled to hold the ball and create anything of note, second half was a wait for us to press the self destruct button.

I just wonder if Robbo has shot his bolt and has run out of idea's. 

As has been said before we need a couple of additions in January and we can push on from there. Don't think we are that far away but a spark is needed. We can comfortably make the play offs and would back us to do well. Feels a bit like a crossroads at the moment but I reckon we will go in the right direction. Supporters of the club should get behind them and make it happen. We are currently paying the price of past poor decisions but this can still be done. 

That was awful today. Everybody keeps complaining about dropping attendances and blaming supporters for not getting behind the team. The bottom line is that there is very little to get excited about. I am an ICT supporter and want to go along to a match to get entertained. Although I love to come away from a match having won a game I would be 'almost' as happy coming away having got beat if I felt that all the players were giving 100% and the game was entertaining. Until there is more entertainment on show I feel we will continue to haemorrhage supporters. Sometimes I think that the players forget that they are there to entertain the fans.

Everyone makes mistakes. That includes professional footballers. Perhaps fans would have more sympathy with certain players making mistakes if those players got back into position asap and tried to make amends. Polworth is a classic example of this. On his day he is one of the most talented players in the squad. However he continually makes mistakes, blames others then doesn't put in much effort to get back into position. He acts like a petulant child and his outburst at fans today after he messed up a cross ball, to my mind, should not be tolerated. Yes fans get onto him but these fans are just venting their frustration about the poor show being put on from a player that is a lot more talented than he shows. I'm not talking about personal abuse that was dished out a few months ago. That was totally out of order and is unacceptable. Fans are paying customers and should be free to express their discontent (although not through a personal attack) if they do not feel what they are seeing comes up to their expectations. People would not be happy with a substandard meal they are paying for, should it be any different on the football pitch.

Although the above is largely negative I do not feel it's too late. If the players raise their game the fans will get behind them. This is evident when there is a sustained period of pressure on the opposition goal. In order to get to the play-offs we need the players to raise their games, take the game to the opponents and then the fans will follow suit. 

Players upped their game against County. Lets do it against every team.

For the bulk of the first half I thought the 2 sides were pretty evenly matched but Utd started to get the upper hand as the game progressed and were certainly the better of the two sides in the 2nd half.  In that sense, this was a point won rather than two lost.  The memory of Utd's home drubbing by Ayr is still fresh and I think there are some who felt this might be a game we could win easily.  But they have been far stronger away from home this season, winning 5 and losing only to Ayr.  I think they feel the weight of expectation at home these days and as a result are more relaxed and effective on the road.  With our injury hit, threadbare squad, I would have taken a draw before the game.

Our team is young and inexperienced and I accept that at times it can be a bit frustrating to watch.  Having played well to start with and scored a very good goal, I thought we were quite capable of getting a second and that getting a 2 goal lead might have rattled Utd.  Unfortunately we seemed to lose any grip on the game and looked less and less like scoring.  With only 13 fit players in the 1st team squad it is not surprising that the substitutions appeared uninspired.  Robbo does not exactly have a lot of options.

Folk have complained that we are slow on the break.  There were times today when we actually broke with good pace, but when we did, there was a tendency for the player making the break not to see the pass that would have led to a goal scoring opportunity.  It is also a bit of a concern how rarely Doran and Polworth seem to be able to find and take shooting chances these days. With their premiership experience they really should be able find that extra yard of space or not take an extra touch in order to get a few more shots away.  On the plus side, I thought Doran put in a generally good shift today but he is missing the spark of old that might have made the difference.

The game wasn't a great spectacle because the defences tended to be on top and both sides cancelled each other out.  But we didn't really play that badly.  We will play worse and win this season, but we will need to play better if we are to end the season in the play-offs.

 

Pass and move is the game we never achieved either had we not had a goalkeeper who was at his best we would have lost by a bag full. What is going on have we to many players who think they are footballers reality  points to yes. Dundee United played a team game pass and move the ball quickly they had more energy and football in them.8

8 hours ago, RednBlackComeback said:

Groundhog day again at ICT. Score a good goal, from a great through ball from Polworth, then down tools for the rest of the game. If it wasn't for some great saves from Ridgers we'd have been 3-1 down by half time. 

Second half was a complete non event from an ICT point of view.....we just didn't turn up. Was only a matter of time before utd equalised and the only real surprise was that they didn't go on to get the winner. 

So another home draw it is. Had we won just a handful of all the games we've drawn at home, we'd be sitting top of the table!

For certain the squad needs freshening up in January. We need something to excite us fans because it's becoming increasingly difficult to muster enthusiasm to go and watch the same old performance, same tactics, same substitutions, and same results week in week out!?

Says it all for me too. Another insufferable draw was too much to bear even if United dominated for most of the game. Thank goodness we don't have another home game until 5 January.

I thought it was a decent game saying that I was hungover! Ridgers deserves credit what a wall ! Rooney least he tries to burst forward and create ! Robbo what does he see in White and how poor must Austin be if he can't get in ahead of him strikers a must in January ! Young boy McGregor looks a find far more exciting to watch than the sideways passing wev become used to!

I imagine Robbo is going to sit the team down to watch what Livingston do when they score, they up tempo and attack attack attack .

What we did when we scored was down tools  and reduce tempo.

We lost a good three point chance, It is not good enough.

In the first half we tried to play our way forward, in the second half United were on top because they had a passing game. More often than not, when we managed to get control of the ball outside our penalty box, we just hoofed it upfield to nobody and United started another attack with some slick passing. That just puts more and more pressure on our defence,  and if it wasn't for Ridgers we would have been beaten yesterday. When we get our passing game together we score goals, but it is all to seldom that it happens now, we just seem to want to defend our one goal lead. We need players who are brave on the ball, beat a man and get a shot away. Too many times in recent matches, there have been opportunities for players to take a shot, but for some reason they pass It on to the next man and then the next man and the chance has gone. Why don't we just have a shoot on sight policy when we get near their goal, you never know where ricochets will go?

It seems to me we have quite a small squad, (we only seem to have 14 senior players fit) that lacks pace, is missing the gameplayer in midfield (Vigurs) and a nature goal scorer. The defence is solid enough, but without Tremarco and the departed Calder/Seedorf is a little unbalanced.

Plus notes for me is the overal form of  Ridgers, Donaldson, Walsh and Oakley, while Polworth seems to deliver in fits and starts.

We are probably 5 players short of a decent team in reality...although I don't understand what's happened to Austin, he seemed to be a promising addition once he got going last season. (as for Beith, how did he pass his medical!?)

7 hours ago, bughtmaster said:

I imagine Robbo is going to sit the team down to watch what Livingston do when they score, they up tempo and attack attack attack .

What we did when we scored was down tools  and reduce tempo.

We lost a good three point chance, It is not good enough.

Sums it up.

Unforgivable that the squad has been allowed to be cut to the bone. Good idea to have quality over quantity but WTF is going on when we can only muster 13 first team players . No way for a full time club to be run, who allegedly have ambitions to return to the top tier.

 

 

3 hours ago, forresjags said:

Unforgivable that the squad has been allowed to be cut to the bone. Good idea to have quality over quantity but WTF is going on when we can only muster 13 first team players . No way for a full time club to be run, who allegedly have ambitions to return to the top tier.

 

 

There was a few times when in the top tier we even struggled to muster even 13 fully fit players. However now the opportunity is there for the youngsters to stake a claim for the first team.

Butcher managed fine with squads of same or similar sizes even in one season where we seemed to have a different defender out injured every week. I don't remember him constantly complaining about it and just changed the formation and tactics to suit the players available.  We don't seem willing or able to do that and just serve up the same plan and same excuses every game.

5 hours ago, forresjags said:

Unforgivable that the squad has been allowed to be cut to the bone. Good idea to have quality over quantity but WTF is going on when we can only muster 13 first team players . No way for a full time club to be run, who allegedly have ambitions to return to the top tier.

 

 

Unfortunately massive budget cuts had to be made with the current board/ Robbo taking, I believe, £1Million off the wage bill.  We are seeing the impact now.  Difficult for us to know we have tremendous youngsters in the wings but particularly for young defenders I think you have to be careful blooding them.  Just would love to see a bit more hustle and passion at times. 

Maybe if we played two strikers out of 3  who all have good scoring ratio at the club up top together we may have a good chance of goals 

it’s quite simple other teams play two up have a look at Ayr two up every game

Ive advocated 352 but would go with 442 also but it would mean Robbo having to choose who to leave out of team betweeen Doran Polworth Welsh and Chalmers and for some reason he wants to play them all but leave players on the bench who would actually get him goals

Most blame the strikers but in fact we have 3 decent strikers but the managers continual 4231 formation is not working and we we need to change it if we want to start winning games

 

 

When was the last time we had a decent second half at home? I am getting a little concerned about the d motivating half time team talk

From your name "Polly appreciation"  we are in no doubt that you like him but what other players and/or moves can you suggest that JR could play or  make to get this team focused and non-dormant. Please say something positive  as if talking to J R and enough of the banal negativity. --ALL.

7 hours ago, Scarlet Pimple said:

From your name "Polly appreciation"  we are in no doubt that you like him but what other players and/or moves can you suggest that JR could play or  make to get this team focused and non-dormant. Please say something positive  as if talking to J R and enough of the banal negativity. --ALL.

Narey's Toepoker recently compared Polly to Iniesta in a blog and referred to those who booed the MOM Saturday as neanderthal (I maintain the boos were for the bizzare nomination, not the recipient) so it shows what a polarising player he is.  Suggestion was that Polly would go and we - presumably the neanderthals to whom he refers - would get our just desserts.?

3 hours ago, Weekend Hacker said:

Narey's Toepoker recently compared Polly to Iniesta in a blog and referred to those who booed the MOM Saturday as neanderthal (I maintain the boos were for the bizzare nomination, not the recipient) so it shows what a polarising player he is.  Suggestion was that Polly would go and we - presumably the neanderthals to whom he refers - would get our just desserts.?

The article you speak of is here: https://nareystoepoker.blogspot.com/2018/12/in-defence-of-liam-polworth.html

 

And you appear to have done your best to misrepresent it.

Anyone reading this can tell that the link to Iniesta is quite obviously tongue-in-cheek. I was comparing how elsewhere skilful players are lauded for what they do, whereas in Polworth's case his good bits (his assist for Walsh's goal, his incredible assists record last season, even that nutmeg of Billy King by his own corner flag) rarely get any praise whereas every mistake he makes comes under the spotlight.

And the 'neanderthal' description was not used as a reference to the MOTM award (though the people sitting around me were not booing the award because it was 'bizarre', because they were making abusive comments about Polworth at the time too). It was a reference at the end of the article to those who abused his family earlier in the year, who slag him off every week regardless of what he does, who are making him a scapegoat for the team's - and the club's - ongoing struggles. And there are too many of them at home games. Frankly, anyone who thinks that booing their own player will actually improve his performance is not very bright.

As for 'just desserts', I'm not sure what that even means?

 

Put Polworth in a team with a centre-forward who shows any intelligence whatsoever in his off-the-ball movement (we certainly don't have one in our squad currently) and watch him fly. I'm fed up of seeing him driving into the final third with the ball and looking for a killer pass to play, only for his teammates to be tightly marked and either making the same runs they have done all game or just not running at all. And when he is either tackled or tries to force a pass that isn't on it's him who gets the blame every time instead of his attackers.

Edited December 18, 20187 yr by hislopsoffsideagain

I fully agree, he is the one decent player we have left and we should all be careful what we wish for

22 hours ago, hislopsoffsideagain said:

The article you speak of is here: https://nareystoepoker.blogspot.com/2018/12/in-defence-of-liam-polworth.html

 

And you appear to have done your best to misrepresent it.

Anyone reading this can tell that the link to Iniesta is quite obviously tongue-in-cheek. I was comparing how elsewhere skilful players are lauded for what they do, whereas in Polworth's case his good bits (his assist for Walsh's goal, his incredible assists record last season, even that nutmeg of Billy King by his own corner flag) rarely get any praise whereas every mistake he makes comes under the spotlight.

And the 'neanderthal' description was not used as a reference to the MOTM award (though the people sitting around me were not booing the award because it was 'bizarre', because they were making abusive comments about Polworth at the time too). It was a reference at the end of the article to those who abused his family earlier in the year, who slag him off every week regardless of what he does, who are making him a scapegoat for the team's - and the club's - ongoing struggles. And there are too many of them at home games. Frankly, anyone who thinks that booing their own player will actually improve his performance is not very bright.

As for 'just desserts', I'm not sure what that even means?

 

Put Polworth in a team with a centre-forward who shows any intelligence whatsoever in his off-the-ball movement (we certainly don't have one in our squad currently) and watch him fly. I'm fed up of seeing him driving into the final third with the ball and looking for a killer pass to play, only for his teammates to be tightly marked and either making the same runs they have done all game or just not running at all. And when he is either tackled or tries to force a pass that isn't on it's him who gets the blame every time instead of his attackers.

I've not really made any attempt to do so but if you feel I have then fair enough.  I get that the comparison was tongue in cheek, believe me.  However, my inference of the neanderthal comment was due to the fact that it was not clear - to me - that you were referring to those responsible for the abhorrent chants earlier this season.  For the main, Polly does get stick which may or may not be down to body language and you are quite correct - sometimes I think that he plays the right ball but those around him are not on the same wavelength.  It must be hugely frustrating for him to have to face this at times.  However, at times his performances are perhaps frustrating and as a fee paying fan I'm afraid everyone is entitled to an opinion - I often debate with those around me around Trafford vs Chalmers, White vs Austin etc etc and people see things differently. For me Polly goes between outstanding when he is on to frustrating when he is not and on that basis we will be at odds.  Just deserts was again from my inference that the article seemed to suggest that ICT fans should be careful what they wish for.  Again, my interpretation perhaps...