Erm, we have a game tomorrow right? Or is not being able to go to games just killing interest in football at the minute?

After playing Alloa a record 28 times last season this is the first of a mere 3 fixtures against them in this campaign. Fairly makes you pine for a pie in a roll. Despite playing well last season Alloa were often found languishing towards the bottom of the league and things are much the same this season. Except Alloa aren't playing well. They lost some important players at the end of last season like Kevin O'Hara, Robbie Deas, Iain Flannigan and Scott Banks. No wonder they aren't doing as well!

Games between the two sides have been pretty entertaining in the last couple of seasons including an enthralling Scottish Cup tie which we won with a late Charlie Trafford header. Wait, Trafford...header...winning goal...nope that's what it says. Anyway, yours truly lost his mind with that goal after one too many fruit ciders and can be seen falling over the advertising boards at the end of this video  

Alloa use the Pixellot camera system for their games, as I understand it, but they don't seem to have been plagued by the same problems at Inverness for whatever reason. So perhaps you can be a bit more confident if you choose to part with a mere £12 to watch us "swat" the wasps aside or might we be "stung" by the home side?

https://live.alloaathletic.co.uk/event/5fc50c9c9e8ec810c40e6cb3

I lost connection just after the Alloa goal. We've taken some pelters for our coverage (and rightly so) but the Alloa offering was just as bad today. Eventually got connected again with a couple of minutes of the game left so I've asked for a (partial) refund.

This streaming of matches is becoming very tiresome very quickly.

With hindsight, I'd have paid for the first half then gone and washed my hair.

I didn't see the game but still disappointed with the result.  Away to Morton next week will be another tough one. 

Worst result of the season.
 

We really struggled against the part-time sides last season too.

On a lighter note, Stuart Kettlewell has had the book launched at him by C*unty and is heading down the job centre.

Chances of some more unfilled seats in the next 300 after that debacle.

Can you have a groundhog season?

As the commentator said, the subs actually made us worse.

8 minutes ago, TheMantis said:

With hindsight, I'd have paid for the first half then gone and washed my hair.

Aye....??   you could have done that at half time and made tea!

31 minutes ago, IBM said:

I didn't see the game but still disappointed with the result.  Away to Morton next week will be another tough one. 

Aye it’s hard to believe but Morton are now 3rd.

1 hour ago, TheMantis said:

With hindsight, I'd have paid for the first half then gone and washed my hair.

 

19 minutes ago, caley100 said:

Aye....??   you could have done that at half time and made tea!

And still made it back with 10 minutes to spare 😉

On reflection, it's only football. This virulent new strain of Covid puts things into perspective.

Stay safe everyone.

44 minutes ago, Scotty said:

 

And still made it back with 10 minutes to spare 😉

That’s plenty.

1 hour ago, Satan said:

Chances of some more unfilled seats in the next 300 after that debacle.

Can you have a groundhog season?

Aye totally empty after being bounced from teir 1 & a bit..to tier 4 restrictions..with no evidence for the highlands produced

 

Can we just stop the season now settle for our place so we’re no relegated !

2 hours ago, Jack Waddington said:

On a lighter note, Stuart Kettlewell has had the book launched at him by C*unty and is heading down the job centre.

Hopefully they take our clown off our hands, I'd f****** drive him there myself!! 

And before anyone has a go (lol), yes I'm pissed off at losing to part timers, it's utterly, utterly unacceptable!! 

I praise the players and management when we win so its only right that I criticise when necessary and today is that day! 

We NEED goalscorers in January, but the clown would know that, as he should know that the defence is a joke. 

Edited December 19, 20205 yr by CaleyTennis
Typo

6 hours ago, jagster said:

Forget it just had a senior moment. This isn’t included with our season ticket 😀😀

I did this before....

I’ve waited a few hours before posting.

I was looking forward to the game and felt we should win. We started well and Mckay’s early goal should have been the catalyst for a good performance and win.

However, we then let Alloa grow into the game and, whilst we probably deserved the half time lead, we had failed to build on it when we had chances. MacGregor came close with a shot and Sutherland would have scored but for a good save by the Alloa goalie.

At half time, results elsewhere were in our favour, which should have inspired us. However, we were extremely poor in the second half. Alloa took the game to us and deservedly won.

The first goal was a very good free kick after Devine conceded a free kick. From what I saw of the second, it was an uncharacteristic gift by Ridgers.

Whilst our youngsters have done well, I think we need to change how we are set up, as teams have worked out how to cope with us.

Ridgers should be first pick in goal.

Whilst the defence has come on for some criticism, I think the Devine / Deas partnership is pretty good. Mckay has done ok recently and Harper is still learning his trade. As players become fit, Duffy could well become right back again, but otherwise I doubt we will change it.

Allardice is doing well, and MacGregor has had some good moments in central midfield but is out of position. We need to get Welsh or Carson alongside Allardice and I think our defence will be better protected.

Whilst they were immense against a poor Queen of the South team, we need to change the set up of the front four. Sutherland is not a wide right player. I would put him through the middle. Storey seems more effective when wide, so a straight swap seems sensible. Keatings has seemed out of sorts, so I’d put MacGregor in that role. Kennedy has been neutralised in the last two games, but I’d persevere and give him as much ball as we can. We have Doran who can step in if he is not making an impact.

It was good that Carson made the bench today. If he is fit enough to even do 45 minutes, I’d start him next week, as we’ve missed his steel and attitude.

The league is tight and anyone can beat anyone, but we need to get a decent number of points in our next three games against Morton, Dunfermline and Arbroath or we could end up in mid table with nothing much to play for or, worse, looking over our shoulder.

Talk of binning Robbo is nonsense. I’ve  seen enough this season to know we can be competitive but we need consistency.

Now I need to work out who to vote for in player of the match. 

Edited December 19, 20205 yr by Robert

3 hours ago, CaleyTennis said:

Hopefully they take our clown off our hands, I'd f****** drive him there myself!! 

And before anyone has a go (lol), yes I'm pissed off at losing to part timers, it's utterly, utterly unacceptable!! 

I praise the players and management when we win so its only right that I criticise when necessary and today is that day! 

We NEED goalscorers in January, but the clown would know that, as he should know that the defence is a joke. 

 

2 hours ago, Moogthurso said:

I did this before....

Yes when you wrote the post above 

17 hours ago, CaleyTennis said:

Hopefully they take our clown off our hands, I'd f****** drive him there myself!! 

And before anyone has a go (lol), yes I'm pissed off at losing to part timers, it's utterly, utterly unacceptable!! 

I praise the players and management when we win so its only right that I criticise when necessary and today is that day! 

We NEED goalscorers in January, but the clown would know that, as he should know that the defence is a joke. 

Robertson should have saved the free kick and he would definitely have saved the second that squirmed in. Go Robbo....

Here's Honest John with a message for you

 

On 12/19/2020 at 5:26 PM, Jack Waddington said:

On a lighter note, Stuart Kettlewell has had the book launched at him by C*unty and is heading down the job centre.

 ...and they've gone and signed Yogi...

 

Hope the man knows better and runs the club into the ground

Two games in a row where other results generally ran in our favour and we couldn't capitalise.

 

A bit like all of last season, then.

The club’s report is a bit more positive than my recollection of the game!

https://ictfc.com/match-report-alloa-2-1-ictfc-19-12-2020

Caley losing capped off a ***** weekend, especially as I saw we were leading! Earlier my other team got properly stuffed by Liverpool 0-7, despite actually giving them a good game...the difference being the finishing! And of course at 4pm Boris cancelled Christmas, and had all three grown up daughters in tears over facetime. Still it could be worse, at least none of my family have had the Virus (so far), we all still have our jobs (so far) and it's not like we're facing 'The Blitz'.

Back to the match..was this a case of Caley going into the match over-confident, and forgetting to do the basic stuff well? A bit of a blow, but the season is still young and we're 4 points off 2nd place, so no reason to think that a good play-off place is not an achieveable aspiration. Hopefully Carson will be back in the starting line up soon in the sort of from he was in last season.