Firhill for Chills

 

It's not a TV spectacular for us on Friday night as we venture down to the big smoke after the freeze to take on Partick Thistle at Firhill. All Championship games this week are to be played on Friday evening at 7:45pm with our game at Firhill your preferred Xmas viewing if you stream it from Partick TV, or maybe not given our TV horror earlier in the season when Partick romped home 4-1. We had last weekend off after New Douglas park was deemed unplayable whilst Partick beat Ayr 3-2 to re-ignite their failing season. Partick are fifth on 27 points and we slipped to seventh on 23 points with Raith jumping above us after drawing with Arbroath.

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Match/Ticket/Supporters Bus Info

Partick TV

Carnihan & Nicolson

Half season tickets on sale now

MD CCST Orth MFSEM FRCS ICTFC

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Venue Head 2 Head

Pld

Won

Drn

Lst

For

Agst

+ / -

Home	24	11	6	7	38	33	+5
Away	23	6	6	11	24	34	-10
Neutral	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	47	17	12	18	62	67	-5

Home advantage historically denotes the winner in these fixtures and we tend to find Firhill a difficult place to pick up wins with only six in twenty-three attempts.

Last 10 Competitive Meetings v Partick Thistle

1 - 0 (H)

1 - 4 (A)

1 - 0 (H)

2 - 1 (A)

0 - 1 (A)

3 - 3 (H)

0 - 0 (A)

3 - 1 (H)

1 - 3 (A)

1 - 3 (H)

Here's our overview from our last visit to Firhill

Firhill Flops: 1 - 4 A Brian Graham double gave Partick a first half lead. For the first the defenders got the wrong side of him, the second a gift from the Inverness defence with a loose pass across the box. It was a lacklustre performance from the visitors in the first forty-five with Billy Mckay having the best effort after an Aaron Dorran lay off, but David Mitchell was equal to the shot to deny the striker from twelve yards. We almost gifted a third early in the second half with a short header back, but Ridgers stood tall to deny Graham his hat-trick. A third did come from the spot after Carson was alleged to have brought down his man. Kevin Holt kept his cool to slot home. Anton Dowds bulleted a header home with five minutes left to add to our miserable night. George Oakley powerfully headed a consolation in time added on, but that won't detract from the rubbish on show tonight.

Embarrassing night for the Caley Jags, and on national TV too!

Current form over the last six games Partick beat League leaders Ayr 3-2 last Saturday Overall Home Away   Pos Team Pld W D L F A W D L F A W D L F A +/- Pts   1. Dundee 6 4 2 0 9 4 2 1 0 3 0 2 1 0 6 4 +5 14 2. Queens Park 6 4 1 1 17 7 2 1 0 8 3 2 0 1 9 4 +10 13 3. Morton 6 3 3 0 10 4 2 0 0 6 1 1 3 0 4 3 +6 12 4. Ayr United 6 3 2 1 12 8 1 1 0 3 1 2 1 1 9 7 +4 11 5. Cove Rangers 6 1 4 1 11 10 1 1 1 4 3 0 3 0 7 7 +1 7 6. Partick Thistle 6 2 1 3 10 11 2 0 1 8 5 0 1 2 2 6 -1 7 7. Raith Rovers 6 2 1 3 9 11 2 1 1 9 7 0 0 2 0 4 -2 7 8. Arbroath 6 0 4 2 4 9 0 2 1 2 4 0 2 1 2 5 -5 4 9. Inverness CT 6 0 3 3 5 11 0 3 1 4 5 0 0 2 1 6 -6 3 10. Hamilton Ac. 6 0 1 5 7 16 0 1 1 6 7 0 0 4 1 9 -9 1

All games FRIDAY 23RD DECEMBER 7:45pm 

Arbroath v Queen's 

Ayr Utd v Dundee

  Cove R v Accies    

Rovers v Morton

   Partick Th v Inverness CT

We did beat Partick last time out at the Caledonian Stadium on 7th October

He scores when he wants: 1 - 0 A first half where defences were on top offered little opportunity for either side to create the clear cut chance required until the half hour when Robbie Deas pounced on a loose clearance within the box. His header was bundled away from goal a yard from the line by two defenders with Mitchell floundering. A couple of minutes later and Mitchell was called into action to scramble the ball away low down at his post from a Duffy header. Billy Mckay clipped one over the bar after a tremendous turn and run by Daniel Mackay. Kyle Turner was red carded for what appeared to be a slightly high tackle on Roddy MacGregor and Inverness ended the half knocking on the Partick door. Cammy Harper brought out a super save from Mitchell with 65 minutes gone, diving high to his top left corner. Ten minutes later Billy Mckay opened the scoring with his fifth goal of the season, drilling home from twelve yards after good work by MotM Dan Mackay. Kevin Holt came close to an unlikely equaliser with a low shot across the face of the goal ten minutes from the end, but Partick rarely threatened. Oakley had an effort kept out on the line acrobatically by Holt as Inverness looked to close out the game. However, Inverness saw out the game to go joint top of the table after their fourth win in a row. That'll do nicely. 

That win put us joint top. A couple of weeks later it all went tits up and we now have no wins in our last 7 League games.

Latest Team News

We have had an extra week to get more bodies back, but given the seriousness of most of our injuries the extra time off is like a drop in the ocean. The Ridgers rift saw Mark playing with the youngsters at Accies a couple of weeks ago. Our last meaningful game was on the 3rd of December when we went down at home to Dundee 0 - 1. Bily Mckay and Sean Welsh missed that one but I would imagine they might be available for this one. If not, why not! This isn't the team lines for the Dundee game, it's just the players that were unavailable: Ridgers, Deas, Delaney, Welsh, Allardice, MacGregor, Walsh, Sutherland, Mckay, Samuels. There may be others, the list is inexhaustible.

Off the Park: Panos Thomas: MD, CCST Orth, MFSEM, FRCS as a Director of ICTFC. It's not an anagram, it's our new director. 

Eck's Partick peek: Reveals nothing new happening at Firhill. They did beat Ayr last week with goals from Milne, Graham and Lawless in an entertaining five goal encounter. Harry Milne beginning to attract a bit of attention. Of course Brian Graham likes a goal against the Caley Jags. As normal, Partick will have a full bench to pick from with the likes of Dowds, Holt and Mullen starting on the bench last week. 

Off the Park: BBC Sport 14th December: Former Glasgow Rocks owner Duncan Smillie has been confirmed as strife-torn Partick Thistle's new chairman. Chair Jacqui Low and six directors resigned last week after recent fan protests followed the Partick Thistle FC Trust becoming majority shareholder. Smillie was the only director not to resign and has become interim chair until the end of the season.

Not just us that are in some turmoil then! 

Oh what a jolly place the forum is today, very seasonal. Anyway my conclusion is we need to break in, kick them all out and change the locks. A wee story first though which tells its own tale.....This morning I had an idea that my team ICT, to which iam a season ticket holder and have been forever, might have a home game today. I then discovered that we played last night and lost. Shows how much I care anymore which I find extremely sad.

I hear what you're saying Yngwie but Dodds seems to be talking about bringing players into the cub in January. If we assume that these players are not playing for free then presumably we're accounting for salaries as part of this fruitless exercise. If we can afford to do that I would suggest that we can afford to keep paying Dodds' salary. I would imagine that there would be no instant pay-off as we'd surely just keep paying him until his contract expired at was the case with Richie Foran. The bottom line is he needs to go and we somehow need to find the money to change a catastrophically bad set up. I think most would agree that we certainly can't afford to let Dodds loose in another transfer window.

35 minutes ago, ymip said:

I hear what you're saying Yngwie but Dodds seems to be talking about bringing players into the cub in January. If we assume that these players are not playing for free then presumably we're accounting for salaries as part of this fruitless exercise. If we can afford to do that I would suggest that we can afford to keep paying Dodds' salary. I would imagine that there would be no instant pay-off as we'd surely just keep paying him until his contract expired at was the case with Richie Foran. The bottom line is he needs to go and we somehow need to find the money to change a catastrophically bad set up. I think most would agree that we certainly can't afford to let Dodds loose in another transfer window.

However does he actually control who comes in or???? I've heard our DOF identifies our signings. But fully agree with sentiment above 

Yes the only remotely positive thing from that interview was the suggestion of new players coming in.  But isn’t is the sporting director rather than Dodds who identifies and secures the targets? Time for Robbo to start proving his worth in that respect.

As for how we can fund them - maybe there are players on their way out (Barrett was short term but might there be others?), maybe there are some cheap loan deals on the cards, maybe the new director has put some money in to make signings possible, maybe a combination of these? The line-ups we’ve had recently are not going to win many matches, regardless of who the manager is, so reinforcements would be welcome.

Dodds Out....that is all

It’s a strange position I find myself. Such is the (poor) performance of the team this season I questioned the capability of the manager to affect the performance positively. When it was clear improvement on the field was not going to happen I looked to the Board / CEO to see a route for improvement! 
They are in full possession on the financial position of the club, so I expect they consider this in any decision as to whether Dodds can change things (the way we all want).

Billy Dodds is no monster and wanted to see ICT succeed for sure! It just transpired that he, like 98% of other ex footballers turn out to be unable to translate personal positivity into actual team performance to match the board and fan’s aspirations. 
Billy Dodds I suspect would have taken an exit card in the past (and right now) but has been asked by the CEO to help steer the club to safety (that is avoid being relegated), this season.

BD is a proud man and will I expect agree to this recognising most want him gone!

So closing - I will turn up in Jan and try to give my team ICT support! If anything the fans are the club and we stick through the hard times!

BD will do his best and ultimately be replaced in due course. Let’s give him and the team our support through to safety from threat of relegation!

 

all the best for the festive season!

bc

 

Edited December 24, 20223 yr by Big cherly

Even if Dodds was removed, I don't trust the powers that be to make the next managerial appointment! It would likely be another 'jobs for the boys' recruitment! 🙄

 

 

 

 

After review of the comments in this thread by the mod team we will leave the referred to posts hidden and post this to make it perfectly clear to all that this is not acceptable.

The posts made had zero relevance to the thread, and cross the line in terms of our site rules. It is clear they were meant as a personal dig towards a club official with no relevance to the discussion at hand. If the poster has a beef of a personal nature with that individual or any other individual at the club this is not the platform for that kind of inflammatory post. Debate the topic, not the person, and certainly not the child of a person who is not even a part of the topic up to that point.

Raise controversial topics if you want - some of these have been interesting, thought provoking and worthy of discussion up to this point - but leave the personal stuff out of it. These have been our rules for 20+ years and will remain so.

Consider this a clear yellow card on the personal stuff. Emotions are running high right now because we do seem to be challenged both on and off the field, but getting overly personal loses focus from the real discussion points that we need to focus on to right what appears to be a heavily listing ship right now. 

 

Sitting dreaming of the good old days. What a fantastic journey! We, like most other clubs of limited means, have seen ups and downs.....but many more ups than downs. What we are witnessing is sad and hard to bear but, over a quarter of a century, supporters of most clubs our size will never have experienced the highs we have. Bucharest seems a long way off......but we got there. Most supporters couldnt dream of that. This looks like a potentially terminal decline. We have been spoiled down the years. A lot seem to be voting with their feet and can hardly be blamed for that stance. We are not entitled to success on the field . I am thankful for the joy and many friends that supporting ICT has brought me. Can I take this opportunity to wish all those connected to the club a Happy Christmas and a better 2023. I paid my tenner last night to watch the Partick game and confess to switching off at half time. I said to my wife that I cannot believe its a friday night and my team is playing in Glasgow and Im not there.....didnt even consider it.  I am however sure that everyone is trying their best.......its all anyone can do.......but it just aint good enough right now. We are not entitled to success. Our time may come again although this looks unlikely for the foreseeable future. My suggestion is ...ease the pain by remembering some of the good times. You will wake up with a smile on your face.

All the best troops!!

I wasn't at last night's game,but tried to keep up with live score.Times are hard when you turn up for games and a draw is a good result.The majority of real fans are at the stage now where we are not that gutted when we get roasted because we kind of expect it now.We don't play or act as a team.Its not one for all and all for one highlighted last night by the SD going to comment for BBC at another game.The whole set up at Caley is tired. Look at the infrastructure,look at game days we cannot even make sure the towels are there in the toilets.Refreshments are limited and if you queue at half time chances are you miss five or 10 minutes of second half.If you cannot get the basics right off the pitch and your senior management don't even travel to watch the boys play at away games what chance have we and I think this apathy rubs off on the players .This kind of malaise.What we need is energetic driven,ambitious senior executives who would die in a ditch for the club.Finally I think Dodds lost the dressing room when he dropped Ridgers who was the one steady constant in the team.The one person who motivated and organised from the back.The player with real street cred.

I was going to stop,but just want to repeat what I have said so many times.If your tactic on game day is to hoof the ball to the smallest player on the park,then we are going nowhere.Where are our wide men can we no play on the deck and pass the ball.

Edited December 24, 20223 yr by Douglas Mackenzie

Supported ICT since 1994 : never felt so negative.

Used to be a team, no matter which division they were in and who they were up against, that would go into a match and you felt they could make things happen and more often than not win.

Sadly that has slowly gone and now completely disappeared.

Get the current regime out and a new start please.

3 points out of 24 since mid October.

That says it all.

This feels much worse than our 11 game winless run last season. 
 

Edited December 24, 20223 yr by Robert

21 minutes ago, Robert said:

3 points out of 24 since mid October.

That says it all.

This feels much worse than our 11 game winless run last season. 
 

Robert, my glass is normally Half full but at the moment it’s empty ☹️ and that’s nothing to do with drinking too much at Christmas 🤪

This is the worst since we started as Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the third division 😱

Merry Christmas again but I don’t know what will happen next year 🤷🏼

In my view our decline started after winning the Scottish Cup. A mass exodus of quality players left us bereft of the talent to sustain our lofty position. Relegation was inevitable. Today's ICT are just not good enough to make a push for promotion. Yes, we've had a wretched amount of luck with injuries etc but surely we have players in the squad who have the pride and determination to at least put in a fighting performance on the park instead of just, what seems like, giving up as the whistle blows for kick off. Our tactics are awful, we have no pace and no 'play maker' to create chances and certainly no one to finish them off when we do. Changes need to happen soonest otherwise we'll be dropping down the leagues and back to our roots.

3 hours ago, Gringo said:

In my view our decline started after winning the Scottish Cup. A mass exodus of quality players left us bereft of the talent to sustain our lofty position. Relegation was inevitable. Today's ICT are just not good enough to make a push for promotion. Yes, we've had a wretched amount of luck with injuries etc but surely we have players in the squad who have the pride and determination to at least put in a fighting performance on the park instead of just, what seems like, giving up as the whistle blows for kick off. Our tactics are awful, we have no pace and no 'play maker' to create chances and certainly no one to finish them off when we do. Changes need to happen soonest otherwise we'll be dropping down the leagues and back to our roots.

Well said Gringo. I've said many times that we have regressed season after season since our Scottish Cup win, when we should have pushed on and at least kept the same standards if not better, but we lost a lot of good players and they were replaced by players lesser skills and talent. I would challenge anybody to tell me what style of team ,playing wise, we are? There is no cohesion with any tactics, it's as if the players are told to go out and just play, as it looks like they have only just met and don't know what or where they are supposed to do or be.

22 hours ago, Naelifts said:

Sitting dreaming of the good old days. What a fantastic journey! We, like most other clubs of limited means, have seen ups and downs.....but many more ups than downs. What we are witnessing is sad and hard to bear but, over a quarter of a century, supporters of most clubs our size will never have experienced the highs we have. Bucharest seems a long way off......but we got there. Most supporters couldnt dream of that. This looks like a potentially terminal decline. We have been spoiled down the years. A lot seem to be voting with their feet and can hardly be blamed for that stance. We are not entitled to success on the field . I am thankful for the joy and many friends that supporting ICT has brought me. Can I take this opportunity to wish all those connected to the club a Happy Christmas and a better 2023. I paid my tenner last night to watch the Partick game and confess to switching off at half time. I said to my wife that I cannot believe its a friday night and my team is playing in Glasgow and Im not there.....didnt even consider it.  I am however sure that everyone is trying their best.......its all anyone can do.......but it just aint good enough right now. We are not entitled to success. Our time may come again although this looks unlikely for the foreseeable future. My suggestion is ...ease the pain by remembering some of the good times. You will wake up with a smile on your face.

All the best troops!!

Happy clappy, sentimental bollocks. If you're not angry at how your club has been mismanaged since 2017, there's something wrong with you. Merry Xmas.

On 12/24/2022 at 1:12 PM, ymip said:

I would imagine that there would be no instant pay-off as we'd surely just keep paying him until his contract expired at was the case with Richie Foran. 

And Hughes. Trouble is, if we keep paying Dodds his salary, what do we pay the new manager with?!  Has to come from somewhere. The substantial amounts we have had to pay to these ex managers is a factor in our demise, monies that could otherwise have gone into the playing squad. I’m not saying you don’t sack managers, but the money aspect is a big consideration for the Board, especially when we are pretty much broke.
 

 

12 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

And Hughes. Trouble is, if we keep paying Dodds his salary, what do we pay the new manager with?!  Has to come from somewhere. The substantial amounts we have had to pay to these ex managers is a factor in our demise, monies that could otherwise have gone into the playing squad. I’m not saying you don’t sack managers, but the money aspect is a big consideration for the Board, especially when we are pretty much broke.
 

 

Genuine question is there no sanction for incompetence in football? In any other job you get paid off and that's that? 

Tbh I'd rather him gone and replaced with someone on the payroll already till we can get someone new? His contract hasn't hot long to run now so could be done with zero additional cost allowing a decent recruitment search for a new person 

I was told that Ryan Esson has more training tickets than Dodds, Kells and Wilson together, not just goalkeeping but all players,  and he’s doing a great job with the under 18s.  Could he and Ross Tokely not do a better job between now and the end of the season, given the chance (if they want to), than the aforementioned three.   

Just a thought! 

 

 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, lizi said:

I was told that Ryan Esson has more training tickets than Dodds, Kells and Wilson together, not just goalkeeping but all players,  and he’s doing a great job with the under 18s.  Could he and Ross Tokely not do a better job between now and the end of the season, given the chance (if they want to), than the aforementioned three.   

Just a thought! 

 

 

 

 

 

I like the sound of this. Esson showed what he can do when the U18's took on Hamilton recently. Be so much better than what we have in place now and between them they'd have a dressing room of players wanting to play for them. 

5 hours ago, lizi said:

I was told that Ryan Esson has more training tickets than Dodds, Kells and Wilson together, not just goalkeeping but all players,  and he’s doing a great job with the under 18s.  Could he and Ross Tokely not do a better job between now and the end of the season, given the chance (if they want to), than the aforementioned three.   

Just a thought! 

 

 

 

 

 

Suspect Tokely is having too much fun playing in the Highland League

On 12/23/2022 at 8:38 PM, tm4tj said:

Max Ram punting the ball to nobody every time he kicks it forward.

It all looks to be happening in slow motion for us and all too easy for Partick.

Rubbish springs to mind.

Yup: out of interest who Aretha current main shareholders in the club? Surely they must have influence on who runs the club etc.

I have already suggested sacking or forcing Dudds to resign mutually and placing Esson in caretaker charge for the rest of the season so I'm certainly all for this as he has our under 18s playing well and getting positive results.

 

I'm not so sure on Tokely though but I disagree with @Tree, I doubt he's having to much fun being outplayed by players from Wick, Clach and Rothes etc who make him look so out of his depth 🤔. 

On 12/24/2022 at 4:19 PM, Scotty said:

After review of the comments in this thread by the mod team we will leave the referred to posts hidden and post this to make it perfectly clear to all that this is not acceptable.

The posts made had zero relevance to the thread, and cross the line in terms of our site rules. It is clear they were meant as a personal dig towards a club official with no relevance to the discussion at hand. If the poster has a beef of a personal nature with that individual or any other individual at the club this is not the platform for that kind of inflammatory post. Debate the topic, not the person, and certainly not the child of a person who is not even a part of the topic up to that point.

Raise controversial topics if you want - some of these have been interesting, thought provoking and worthy of discussion up to this point - but leave the personal stuff out of it. These have been our rules for 20+ years and will remain so.

Consider this a clear yellow card on the personal stuff. Emotions are running high right now because we do seem to be challenged both on and off the field, but getting overly personal loses focus from the real discussion points that we need to focus on to right what appears to be a heavily listing ship right now. 

 

Your house, your rules, but I did NOT make any personal dig towards a club official.

I wouldn't advocate for anyone at the club just now being manager long term, but it's clear that Dodds has become unpopular with sizeable sections of the fanbase and there are stories coming out that he is also not rubbing along too well with the players.

When a fox gets in with the chickens, you don't leave him there because you can't afford to fix the hole in the fence!  You get rid and patch it as best you can with what you have in the short term.

On that basis, we need to use what we have to get through the rest of the season.  From there we can take stock and put longer term solutions in place.