Information about Saturday’s game:

https://ictfc.com/ictv-info-stirling-albion-h

and here:

https://ictfc.com/up-next-stirling-albion-h

Edited July 15, 20214 yr by Robert

Well that was p!sh 😒

first loss against them since 1996 !

https://caleythistleonline.com/stats/opponentlist.html/

 

Disappointing performance and result, but can’t grudge Stirling getting the extra point.

We didn’t have the craft and guile to turn our possession into a winning goal when faced with resolute defending and once it was 2-2, other than the sitter Doran missed at the death, Stirling came closest to scoring.

MacKay had no chance with the goals.

Carson was hampered a bit by the knock he took early on, but became our most influential player.

I was not as impressed by Broadfoot today, and he doesn’t seem fully fit. Fyffe was having a tough time, which is probably why he was subbed.

Midfield and up front we struggled to create, with Gardyne having a quiet game. We didn’t give Walsh enough of the ball, as he looked our best bet.

I agree with the comment above about  Duku. He didn’t really do much of note and was hoping to be fouled most times he had the ball. For me, the jury is out.

Not our finest day, and once again we look to be failing to get out of the group stages, but we need to use the next two games to sharpen up so we are ready for the league campaign. 

Edited July 17, 20214 yr by Robert

23 minutes ago, CaleyCiuin said:

Well that was p!sh 😒

As good as that?

Certainly paints a poor picture of Peterhead.

That was so disappointing, especially after we seemed to get most of it right on Tuesday night. We never got our rhythm going and didn't use our wings enough. We seemed to be looking for this magical 30 yard pass over their defence, that was mopped up by the Albion defence at ease. We really need to find a striker that is ruthless in front of goal. I agree with the posters on here who said that Duku seems to want to take too long to get his shot away, and what a waste of a free kick he took. Maybe we thought the points were in the bag before the game, as our passing, fluency and energy from the Peterhead game just wasn't there today. We need to regroup and play our best eleven against Cove now, and hope we are on seven points going into the Hearts game.

Performance not great today. Bit of a worry how easily Stirling created chances against us. I am sure the manager will have identified areas of concern. Disappointing after the performance and result Tuesday. Hopefully Welsh okay after going off second half. Some poor free kicks and the penalty misses not great. A reality check today highlighting work to be done. 

Don't want to be that guy, but I kinda blame our loss on the ref. Their first goal, I felt was retribution for what probably should've been a penalty from a handball, but then there was absolutely tons of blatant penalty and dangerous free kick opportunities that the ref did nothing with. Their second goal was absolutely pish poor and didn't deserve to happen...

I disagree Jack. It wasn’t a penalty early on but the free kick they scored from was fair enough. Our players were distracted by Carson’s injury but I don’t think the kick was stoppable.

There seemed little in our penalty claims, with Duku going down far too easily in my opinion.

Even if the ref did make any wrong calls, we were against a team two leagues below us and should have been able to carve out a win, even from 2 down. Sadly we only had one really clear chance after getting back to 2-2, but Doran put it wide. Both our goals were decent, though.

I was surprised Peterhead beat Cove today, as Stirling were much better today than Peterhead were on Tuesday.

When we kept with the ball on the deck we looked interesting. We’d do 10/12 passes then someone would lose patience and try a useless chip into ‘space’ ….in a howling gale! Patience !! 

25 minutes ago, Jack Waddington said:

Don't want to be that guy, but I kinda blame our loss on the ref. Their first goal, I felt was retribution for what probably should've been a penalty from a handball, but then there was absolutely tons of blatant penalty and dangerous free kick opportunities that the ref did nothing with. Their second goal was absolutely pish poor and didn't deserve to happen...

The referee was not brilliant but the loss was absolutely not down to any failings on the part of the officials.

We played poorly, we took penalties poorly and got what we deserved.

Reflecting on today when trying to pick my three for the player thread, as we seemed to be missing guile in midfield, should we put Carson back in there and give Duffy a run at right back?

I would certainly support that, despite how well Carson has done at right back.

Has Duffy fallen out of favour? He is still very young and showed potential last season. 

1 hour ago, Robert said:

Reflecting on today when trying to pick my three for the player thread, as we seemed to be missing guile in midfield, should we put Carson back in there and give Duffy a run at right back?

I would certainly support that, despite how well Carson has done at right back.

Has Duffy fallen out of favour? He is still very young and showed potential last season. 

I honestly don’t think we were lacking guile in midfield we just had defenders who decided to try ‘wonder’ passes instead of simple ones and lost possession because of this. Lack of patience. 

Just have to go and beat Cove and Hearts to qualify. After that performance against Stirling I can't see us getting any more than 3 points though. 

Announcer at the game was way too loud - needs turned down. The penalties: blasting out the name of taker and result after each penalty not required. Also playing the goal music after a penalty went in was no right... 

....Not just me then!

We were in the South Stand and the volume of chat and music throughout was way too high. I appreciate his enthusiasm but just overpowering.

I think you are all being too kind my verdict on the displayand result is performance unacceotable!

professionals against Part timers playing at home against a team two leagues below, come on get this sorted now.

And so it begins - another roller coaster season with the Caley Jags 

I wasn't able to see any of the Peterhead match but was greatly encouraged by what others had said.  Such a disappointment then to witness this lacklustre performance.  When we got the well worked equaliser I thought we would go on to win comfortably.  It should have given us a boost but we seemed to drop off the pace, and when we did create chances our efforts on goal were woeful.  Fair play to Stirling though.  They looked better than some Championship sides I've seen and they moved forward quickly with good movement from players who at times seemed quicker and fitter than us.  They looked a real threat on the break and might easily have scored more.

We played some tidy football at times with good ball retention and interplay in midfield, but there was a lack of movement up front, we were rarely able to find the defence splitting passes and any crosses into the box were generally poor.  As for the defence; being lucky to concede only 2 goals at home against a part time team 2 divisions below us tells its own story.  But hey.  It was back to watching live football and that is a real positive.

Watching the goals back from a different angle, I’ve maybe been a bit harsh on Duku given he had a part in the build up to both, controlling awkward balls and setting the scorers up.

It confirmed my view that we had very poor penalties from Walsh, Carson and Sutherland.

I can’t disagree with Bughtmaster’s view of the game at all!

The club’s report is now on line, putting a more positive spin on things than my experience of the match: 

https://ictfc.com/match-report-ictfc-2-2-stirling-albion-17-07-2021

Edited July 18, 20214 yr by Robert

I think the Boss came over well in the interview and I'm sure he will get into their heads for Tuesday.

We had a lot of the ball but didn't create too many clear cut chances. From an ICT perspective the defending for the second goal was a shambles. Carson completely switched off and let his man run off him. Nice free kick for the opener but I can't help but feel we didn't defend that set piece particularly well either. A couple of nice passing moves at the edge of the box saw us score two decent goals and although we dominated in terms of attacking with Stirling content to sit back and hit on the counter we struggled to really test the keeper. Doran had the best chance to win it when he sclaffed a shot wide with only the keeper to beat. That said, Stirling looked decent on the counter and although Broadfoot was pretty decent for most of the game he did have a comedy mishap with Deas (I think) where the two of them went for the ball and both missed it leading to a clear chance for Albion to grab a winner but they hit the post / bar. That penalty shoot out was pretty rotten. Almost as bad as the one between the two sides back in 2017 in the same competition. 

That's us possibly out of the competition already as we will probably need to do our usual of get at least a point from Hearts or avoid losing 3 - 0 only to contrive to lose 4 - 0. Meh.

On the plus side it was great being back at a game again.

Over the balance of the two games we are a fair bit below where we want to be, both in terms of performance & results.  

Bearing in mind the few pre-season games and the number of new signings,combined with players missing and yet to play I think we are justified in expecting big improvements in coming weeks - hopefully this will materialise by the time the league (important one) kicks off.

Very interested to see how well Mr Hughes does in these crucial times.

52 minutes ago, Satan said:

Over the balance of the two games we are a fair bit below where we want to be, both in terms of performance & results.  

Bearing in mind the few pre-season games and the number of new signings,combined with players missing and yet to play I think we are justified in expecting big improvements in coming weeks - hopefully this will materialise by the time the league (important one) kicks off.

Very interested to see how well Mr Hughes does in these crucial times.

At half time on Saturday it was obvious that the subs were being put through their paces quite sharply, in quite a contrast to previous seasons when the subs usually casually chatted and maybe kicked a couple of balls about halfheartedly.