Let's Do This!

 

The Championship kicks off on Friday night with title favourites Dundee United visiting Arbroath. For the rest of us mere mortals, it all begins on Saturday at 3:00pm and we are at the Caledonian Stadium to host Queens Park, a side we never got the better of last season. Five attempts to beat them on the park and our only 'success' came off the park in the Scottish Cup when Queens were turfed out of the competition for fielding an ineligible player. Thank you Euan Henderson, you saved last season from being a complete failure to just a failure! We start the season with five new players and our major departures were Scott Allardice and Robbie Deas. Loan players Dan Mackay and Jay Henderson were also returned to their parent clubs. 

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Match/Ticket Info

Harry Lodovica

Mathew Strachan

Harry Hennem

Ethan Cairns

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Last seasons Meetings including 0-2 Cup Loss at Home

1 - 2 (A)

0 - 2 (H)

0 - 0 (H)

1 - 2 (A)

1 - 1 (H)

 

FRIDAY 4TH AUGUST

  Arbroath v Dundee Utd

SATURDAY 5TH AUGUST

Dunfermline v Airdrieonians

Morton v Ayr Utd.

Inverness CT v Queen's Park

Partick v Rovers

Team News

Inverness signed five players during the summer. Defender Jake Davidson, midfielder Charlie Gilmour, forwards Adam Brooks, Luis Longstaff and Harry Lodovica, a work in progress, being the last signing. Unfortunately we have lost young left back Lewis Nicolson to what seems to be a fairly serious knee injury. Promising youngsters Ethan Cairns, Harry Hennem and Mathew Strachan have all been loaned out to Highland League sides until January ahead of the start of the Championship. Roddy MacGregor is going back under surgery for his knee and will be out for possibly three/four months. Lewis Nicolson is out with a knee injury. Danny Devine and Sean Welsh will be touch and go but Adam Brooks should return to the squad. Keith Bray looks likely to be the breakthrough kid this season. He showed up well in pre-season and League Cup encounters.

Hear from Dodds ahead of the Queens Park game

Where's Harry? Here he is>>>

 

 

Queens Park are a much changed side from the one that toyed with us last season. New head coach Robin Veldman comes in from Anderlecht. Simon Murray left last January and is now scoring over the Bridge, and the giant defender Stephen Eze is away.

In: Sam Kane, goalkeeper (Rangers); Will Tizzard, defender (Southampton); Jack Spong, midfielder (Brighton); Jack Turner, midfielder (Southampton); Rocco Hickey-Fugaccia, forward (Livingston); Ruiri Paton, forward (Queen of the South). Loans in: Barry Hepburn, midfielder (Bayern Munich).

Out: Owen Coyle, head coach; Jake Davidson of course who joined ICT,  defenders Lee Kilday, Callum Yeats, Stephen Eze, Liam McQuaid and Max Gillies; midfielders Liam Brown, Calum Biggar and Lewis Moore; forward Gregor Nicol,

Loan ended: Marcel Oakley, defender (Birmingham City); Malachi Boateng, midfielder (Crystal Palace), Josh McPake, midfielder (Rangers); Connor Shields, forward (Motherwell); Euan Henderson, forward (Hearts).

Queens Park lost out 1-2 to Queen of the South in their last League Cup game and like us they failed to progress to the next stage of the competition. They were reduced to ten men when Fox was red carded just after the interval. They did miss a late penalty through Ruari Paton and Aaron Healy scored a last minute consolation for QP who won only 4 points in their group games with one win and a draw. They had scored six goals for the loss of three. Ruari Paton was the top scorer with four goals against Elgin City in a 5-0 thrashing with Charlie Fox scoring the other. Dom Thomas is credited with a couple of assists and he likes to wind us up. A 0-0 draw with East Fife was followed by a narrow 1-0 defeat at Motherwell where QP gave a good account of themselves.

Queens Park team v Queen of the South:

McKenna

 

Longridge   Bannon   Fox    Robson

 

Thomson (Healy 78)   Spong   Turner (Tizzard 49)

 

Hepburn (Bruce 64)   Paton   Thomas (McLeish 78)

 

 

 

If you need something to cheer you up, watch all of record breaker Billy Mckay's 102 Inverness CT goals>>>

 

Who made the really bad error for the goal? 

58 minutes ago, robbo1985 said:

Who made the really bad error for the goal? 

Scot Gardiner in giving Dodds a new 2 year deal. 

Gardiner should call Dodds into his office, sack him, and then resign 

Same old I'm afraid, although we had nice touches in first half and were unlucky twice to  Billy Mackay shots.Defensive error cost us  a goal yet again and thank goodness for Billy Mackay,Shaw and Davidson and young Bray in second half.We will have to sharpen up if we are going to make anything of this season with Dundee U,Queens, Partick and Dunfermiline all pushing for for top.Not a lot else you can say other that Queens were running rings round us for most of second half.Standside linesman had a poor game missing too many incidents.

20 minutes ago, Duke of Inverness said:

Scot Gardiner in giving Dodds a new 2 year deal. 

Yeah the way Dodds instructs the defenders to make basic errors is something that he needs to change. A better manager would ask them to defend properly instead!

2 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Yeah the way Dodds instructs the defenders to make basic errors is something that he needs to change. A better manager would ask them to defend properly instead!

Are you aware of the concept of 'coaching'?

I really really am not looking forward to the coming season, certain of more of this sort of results. Sorry for raising my voice.

Edited August 5, 20232 yr by BallisticSheriff

Two visiting Dutch visitors concluded that the referee was poor. We cannot blame him for our 70 minutes of lacklustre play. However, hopefully that is the end of our pre-season friendlies or else we will be bottom after the next two away games. 

Yet again another shambolic display by a team that you Billy Dodds has put together . Time to go ,along with your CEO who between you are making a total mess of the club .

What an abysmal performance, but it's what I expected when I saw the formation and team line up. We were so light in midfield, only Carson and Gilmore in the CM, we really needed another in there, and it just shows how tactically unaware Dodds is, that he never changed a thing at half time. In my opinion we should have started with one up top, Mckay, Samuels is just not cutting it for me, and then one in behind, Doran or Bray, and have another CM in the middle. We don't have Welsh or Allardice now and we get over run by our opponents in there. And there is still far too much of the 'punt the ball anywhere up the park', just hoping that one of our players get onto it, which rarely happens, while our opponents pass the ball through us. Queens Park were by far the better team, and the ref was one of the worst I've seen. I fear that this is going to be a very long hard season, and if we can't win our home matches I dread to think where wins will come from.

Unfortunately missed this game as on holiday. Can anyone confirm if we have an injury crisis yet please?

46 minutes ago, Stephen Malkmus said:

Gardiner should call brother Dodds into the lodge sack him, and then resign 

Ftfy

2 hours ago, ICTPaisley said:

Shinty 😂 Jeezo 

Can’t be worse than crying at the the crap on show today!

Edited August 5, 20232 yr by big cherly

What a start to the league 😭. Can't remember us getting more that 2 passes put together and why do we play with more urgency for the last 10 minutes of the match, play like that from the start! The only positive from today's game for me was Keith Bray looks a good prospect for the season.

11 minutes ago, bdu98196 said:

Unfortunately missed this game as on holiday. Can anyone confirm if we have an injury crisis yet please?

Yes - Dodds is still uninjured.  

12 minutes ago, bdu98196 said:

Unfortunately missed this game as on holiday. Can anyone confirm if we have an injury crisis yet please?

It looks like Nicolson out for season,  and Roddy Macgregor is having an operation on is ankle on Monday so I believe, don't know what's the story with Welsh, but he's missed the last couple of games. 

11 minutes ago, TheCaleyOne said:

What a start to the league 😭. Can't remember us getting more that 2 passes put together and why do we play with more urgency for the last 10 minutes of the match, play like that from the start! The only positive from today's game for me was Keith Bray looks a good prospect for the season.

I said the same thing to my son, if we score, we will throw the kitchen sink at them in the last ten minutes, why don't we start like that? Dodds couldn't pick his nose, never mind the correct starting eleven. Bray should be a starter every time, he has energy and desire.

18 minutes ago, Jaggernaut said:

It looks like Nicolson out for season,  and Roddy Macgregor is having an operation on is ankle on Monday so I believe, don't know what's the story with Welsh, but he's missed the last couple of games. 

Thank **** we have Panos on board, that seems to be making all the difference to our advising the club on how to manage players on an individual level and mitigate injuries. Least we won't have to pay him a significant day rate as a third party consultant 🙄

3 hours ago, robbo1985 said:

Who made the really bad error for the goal? 

Harper, uncharacteristically. He should have done a simple pass back to Ridgers but hesitated and lost possession.

That was a very disappointing afternoon. We started fast but from about the fifth minute Queens Park started to dominate possession and just seemed sharper than us. Both teams had chances before we gifted the goal.

The early goal in the second half really killed it and we only started showing some urgency after Bray and Hyde replaced Gilmour and Longstaff.

Davidson got what turned out to be a consolation.

Both ‘keepers had good saves and on another day there would have been more goals.

As others have said, Bray was the pick of the players, followed by Shaw, Mckay and Duffy.

For me Samuels spent too much time on the deck after contact from QP players and whilst his pace is an asset I don’t think he’s the right option as a starter right now and he should be used as an impact player off the bench.

I need to see more of Lodovica before forming an opinion on him. He’s a big lad and deceptively quick but the jury is out.

I’m forming the opinion Carson is a better right back than central midfielder but that was maybe as we tended to be outnumbered so he was fighting an uphill battle.

QP deserved the win but the ref should have stamped out the time wasting. How many times did they kick the ball away, get a second ball on the park or dawdle at kick outs? It’s not an excuse but the authorities should make refs clamp down on it.

Our home form let us down last season and hopefully we don’t repeat that this year. Two big away games now in which we need to pick up points. 

Edited August 5, 20232 yr by Robert

1 hour ago, big cherly said:

Can’t be worse than crying at the the crap on show today!

It wasn't. I enjoyed the shinty. Refreshing afternoon and positive. Can't say I'm in any rush to waste my money watching ICT, with a crap head coach, narcissistic CEO and feeling peed off at 4.45pm. 

Plenty more to do on a Saturday afternoon folks. Give it a try. 

I have a little good news for fans who couldn't make the game - Iain Auld was covering the game on Sportsound, hopefully this carries on throughout the season.

FFS : yet another home defeat....

Really don't think I could stomach another season of mediocrity (at best).

Was thinking of Ayr away...but think I'll give it a miss..

Absolutely dominated by QP , who passed it around us for fun and imo did us a favour by time wasting and not going for a 3rd or 4th goal. Could have been embarrassing today.

We really are devoid of any fresh ideas and the opportunity for change in the summer has been a badly  missed one.

Barely 2000 for an opening day fixture ,sez it all really, nobody gives a toss about the clubs current set up.

2 minutes ago, forresjags said:

Absolutely dominated by QP , who passed it around us for fun and imo did us a favour by time wasting and not going for a 3rd or 4th goal. Could have been embarrassing today.

We really are devoid of any fresh ideas and the opportunity for change in the summer has been a badly  missed one.

Barely 2000 for an opening day fixture ,sez it all really, nobody gives a toss about the clubs current set up.

Yes. I really get the impression that Dodds & co seem to happy with a little above garbage..

38 minutes ago, Duke of Inverness said:

It wasn't. I enjoyed the shinty. Refreshing afternoon and positive. Can't say I'm in any rush to waste my money watching ICT, with a crap head coach, narcissistic CEO and feeling peed off at 4.45pm. 

Plenty more to do on a Saturday afternoon folks. Give it a try. 

I have my season ticket and will see it out again supporting my team.  If the shinty is that good you can always do a report on the game in the Other Sports section on this forum.