Shut that window

 

Second bottom Queen of the south come calling to the Caledonian Stadium to take on second top Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Saturday afternoon at 3:00pm is the kick-off. Queens have lost their last two fixtures and Inverness are without a win in their last three games. Time to close the transfer window before we have nobody left to play out the season.

Venue - H2H

Pld

Won

Drn

Lst

For

Agst

+ / -

Home	20	12	2	6	36	24	+12
Away	19	8	7	4	33	20	+13
Neutral	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	39	20	9	10	69	44	+25

OFFICIAL PREVIEW

Pos Team Pld W D L F A Pts   1. Arbroath 21 10 8 3 33 15 38 2. Inverness CT 20 10 6 4 27 15 36 3. Kilmarnock 20 11 3 6 26 14 36 4. Raith Rovers 21 9 8 4 28 20 35 5. Partick Thistle 19 9 5 5 32 18 32 6. Hamilton Ac. 21 6 6 9 24 36 24 7. Ayr United 20 5 6 9 19 32 21 8. Morton 20 3 8 9 22 31 17 9. Q.O.S. 20 4 5 11 19 31 17 10. Dunfermline 20 2 9 9 18 36 15

 

FRIDAY 19:45

Partick v Killie

SATURDAY 15:00

  Ayr Utd v Morton

Dunfermline v Hamilton  

 Inverness v Queens

Raith Rovers v Arbroath

Inverness have picked up six points from the two games between the clubs this season, both ending 2-1 in favour of the Caley Jags.

CTO Summary from 25th September: Goals from Sean Welsh and Michael Gardyne were just enough to put Inverness back to the top of the table despite a worldy goal from Lee Connelly for the visitors. Inverness deserved the win but made hard work of it before Gardyne scored a superb volley to win the points and ease the fans nerves.

CTO Summary from 19th November: The visitors opened the scoring when Billy Mckay converted a first half penalty. They doubled their lead when he added a second from a superb Carson cross but Queens forced a tense finish when Lee Connelly smashed the ball into the net to give them hope. However Inverness saw out the game to claim the points and move a point behind leaders Kilmarnock who play Arbroath on Saturday. 

Last Time Out

The Caley Jags recovered from a goal down to draw with Raith Rovers last weekend. The points were shared thanks to two spectacular goals from Ethan Ross and Reece McAlear. A poor first half for the hosts saw Raith lead at the break but a better performance after the interval earned a share of the points although Raith will be aggrieved that they never ended their 22 year wait for a win over Inverness.

Queens were deservedly beaten by Kilmarnock in a 2-0 defeat at Palmerston. Alan Johnston had this to say about it on BBC Sport: "It was never a penalty. There was a tug of the shirt but I've seen it again and it was way outside the box. But we continue to give away cheap goals. We have a fight on our hands. That's for sure."

That's something like only four wins in 25 games since Alan Johnston went to Palmerston. The sort of form that gets teams relegated. Unfortunately, on the whole, we seldom take full advantage of this and often find ourselves struggling to dominate these games. That needs to change now if we want to remain interested in topping this league. Showing some urgency from the start would be an improvement on recent offerings. 

Latest Team News

Billy Dodds saw Sean Welsh return last week as a second half substitute against Raith Rovers. Aaron Dorran missed out with a thigh injury and is a major doubt. Youth player Harry Hennem will continue his loan spell at Brora Rangers until the end of the season. More disturbing news though if true is that Scott Allardice is allegedly out for the season if you believe the latest rumours. Another equally disappointing one is that Robbie Deas is the subject of a six figure bid by St Johnstone to lure our defender to McDiarmid Park, following the footsteps of defenders Jamie McCart and Shaun Rooney. Meh!

Next up for scrutiny will be Shane Sutherland...

As an aside, but equally annoying: Daniel Mackay has joined Killie on loan, and loan Ranger Kai Kennedy has gone to Hamilton Accies.

Willie Gibson should return for Queens who should also have former County and Inverness player Alex Cooper plying his trade at left back. Keeper Sol Brynn has been recalled by Middlesbrough but midfielder Don McMahon comes back from his loan to Dalbeattie Star.

 

6 hours ago, SteveA said:

I was really impressed with Queens number 10 yesterday, Lee Connelly I think it was. Looked exactly the type of player we need, pacey and direct with an eye for a goal. 

I thought he was on loan from Sunderland but apparently they released him summer last year. He's a signed QOS player then. Only 22 and would be brilliant in a better team imho 

I thought we were significantly better against QOS than we were against Raith last week.  There was much more energy and we created a lot of decent chances.  Had we been a bit more clinical up front we could have won that very comfortably.   We were undone yesterday by poor defending.  Their 1st goal was a very good goal but should have been defended better.  Paton received the ball in acres of space and both Welsh and Carson went to close him down.  Paton released the ball for a 1-2 and moved off into space.  Nobody tracked him so he was again in plenty of space to pick a great ball through to Connelly who may or may not have been offside.  Players should play to the whistle rather than look to the linesman with an arm raised, which was the reaction of both Broadfoot and Deas.  Broadfoot did do his best to cover once he realised the flag was not raised, but he'd left it too late.   Deas simply didn't bother trying.  The 2nd was really poor marking at a free kick.  Deas failed to track Debayo who was given the time and space to allow the ball to drop and to play a teasing cushioned volley into the danger area with absolutely no pressure being applied.

QOS will feel very fortunate to have got anything from that game. Without those defensive errors and with a bit more composure up top, we could have been celebrating another thumping victory.  

9 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

I thought we were significantly better against QOS than we were against Raith last week.  There was much more energy and we created a lot of decent chances.  Had we been a bit more clinical up front we could have won that very comfortably.   We were undone yesterday by poor defending.  Their 1st goal was a very good goal but should have been defended better.  Paton received the ball in acres of space and both Welsh and Carson went to close him down.  Paton released the ball for a 1-2 and moved off into space.  Nobody tracked him so he was again in plenty of space to pick a great ball through to Connelly who may or may not have been offside.  Players should play to the whistle rather than look to the linesman with an arm raised, which was the reaction of both Broadfoot and Deas.  Broadfoot did do his best to cover once he realised the flag was not raised, but he'd left it too late.   Deas simply didn't bother trying.  The 2nd was really poor marking at a free kick.  Deas failed to track Debayo who was given the time and space to allow the ball to drop and to play a teasing cushioned volley into the danger area with absolutely no pressure being applied.

QOS will feel very fortunate to have got anything from that game. Without those defensive errors and with a bit more composure up top, we could have been celebrating another thumping victory.  

There is much truth un what you say but the bottom line is that we were not celebrating a thumping victory, although the Morton game aside I'm not sure where you get the word 'another' from.

We were in fact bemoaning another frustrating and possibly damaging draw against a side we should be beating, particularly at home.

FWIW, I wouldn't have taken Duku on and instead I would have tried Jamieson as he seems to play well with Mckay and has looked better than Duku in the games he has played. I also wouldn't have taken off MacGregor so unless this was a change that had to be made through injury or fitness I would have gone with:

Ridgers
Devine Broadfoot Deas
Carson Welsh McAlear Walsh
MacGregor
Mckay Jamieson

I might not have started with this formation, probably going with the same 4411 that Dodds did go with, but as the game went on and we needed to get more goals I would have tried the above approach given that we ended the game against Raith with 3 CBs.

Edited January 17, 20224 yr by RiG

2 hours ago, RiG said:

 

Ridgers
Devine Broadfoot Deas
Carson Welsh McAlear Walsh
MacGregor
Mckay Jamieson

Pretty close to what I suggested above. I don’t disagree with you at all, as Jamieson has not really been given a chance.

However, our good run was when we had Duku starting so maybe his presence creates opportunities for others.

Equally we had Gardyne then too, but his actions have deprived us of his input.

At least we are starting to debate solutions rather than simply complaining about our recent displays.

Like DD, I thought we were better on Saturday than we were against Raith. 

2 hours ago, Robert said:

Pretty close to what I suggested above. I don’t disagree with you at all, as Jamieson has not really been given a chance.

However, our good run was when we had Duku starting so maybe his presence creates opportunities for others.

Equally we had Gardyne then too, but his actions have deprived us of his input.

At least we are starting to debate solutions rather than simply complaining about our recent displays.

Like DD, I thought we were better on Saturday than we were against Raith. 

We were absolutely better against Queens than we were than for all but the last 10 minutes against Raith.

Sadly, still not good enough.

"Better than last week" is a pretty low bar to be honest given how the game against Raith went.

Edited January 17, 20224 yr by RiG