Matchday Three

 

It's another tough away day for the Caley Jags as they head to the Excelsior Stadium for a Championship encounter against promoted Airdrieonians, a side that have already beaten us in the League Cup game at the Caledonian Stadium by the odd goal in five. It's scheduled for a 3:00pm kick-off on Saturday as Inverness look for their first points of the season and The Diamonds looking to consolidate their good start to life in the Championship.

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Match/ticket/Bus info £20

Inverness Cup Final Success

Max Ram

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League Cup game at the Caledonian Stadium this season is the only relevant game between these sides in 21 years:    2 - 3 The only highlights for us was a stunning strike from Charlie Gilmour after we gifted Airdrie a two goal start and Billy Mckay's record breaking 102nd goal, a penalty he won then converted. Airdrie benefitted from slack defending, something that has typified our poor start to the season, and scored twice in the first half through Ballantyne and Telfer. Having drawn level our old chum Nikolay Todorov struck the winning blow after more defensive frailties in the final minute. Meh! We also lost the services of young defender Lewis Nicolson that day after he appeared to catch his studs in the turf early in the game.

 

Pos Team Pld W D L F A Pts 1. Queens Park 3 3 0 0 5 2 9   2. Dundee Utd 2 1 1 0 5 1 4 3. Raith Rovers 2 1 1 0 5 4 4 4. Dunfermline 2 1 1 0 3 2 4 5. Morton 2 1 0 1 5 4 3   6. Airdrieonians 2 1 0 1 3 3 3 7. Ayr United 2 1 0 1 2 3 3 8. Partick Thistle 2 0 1 1 3 4 1   9. Inverness CT 2 0 0 2 1 3 0   10. Arbroath 3 0 0 3 1 7 0

Championship Fixtures Saturday 25th August 3:00pm

1. Airdrieonians v Inverness CT 
2.         Ayr United v Dundee United
3.  Dunfermline v Raith Rovers
4.    Morton v Arbroath
5. Partick Thistle v Queen's Park

Last Time Out 

Inverness went down 1-0 at Ayr. A tight game but another defeat, five in a row now. Francis Amartey made the difference with a first half goal and Nathan Shaw hit the post with just the keeper to beat. Our previous fixture was a 1-2 defeat to last seasons bogey boys Queens Park. It was a case of too little too late against the Spiders who took advantage of defensive errors to coast into a two goal lead before Jake Davidson headed in near the final whistle. Dom Thomas and Tommy Robson were the scorers for Queens Park. That opening defeats leave us bottom of the table with Arbroath. We did win something though. We lifted the Inverness Cup in a 4-1 win over Clachnacuddin on Tuesday night. A first half hat-trick from big Harry Lodovica did the damage with youngster Lewis Mackie rounding off the scoring in the second half. Former Inverness youth Calum Ferguson scored the Clach goal in what turned out to be a useful exercise for both clubs.

Airdrie ran Ross County close in the League Cup before going out 4-3 after extra time. County looked like putting Airdrie to the sword early on with two goals from Kyle Turner and Jordan White inside seven minutes. Gallagher pulled one back before the break but County restored their two goal advantage two minutes later through Simon Murray. Gallagher scored a late penalty to send the tie to an unlikely extra-time but County won it when Eamonn Brophy scored the winner. In their opening day fixture Airdrie went down 2-1 at Dunfermline (Craig Watson had put Airdrie ahead ) but bounced back to beat Partick Thistle in the next game, McGill and Gallagher the scorers.

Latest Team News

Inverness still have a few injury doubts. Roddy MacGregor and Lewis Nicolson are out longer term. Sean Welsh and Danny Devine have missed the last couple of games but Austin Samuels and Adam Brooks played for an hour in the Inverness Cup win over Clachnacuddin on Tuesday night. Harry Lodovica got a confidence boosting hat-trick against Clach and Wallace Duffy and Aaron Doran came through unscathed. Defender Max Ram has left the Caley Jags to join English National League North side Gloucester City AFC. Max joined us from Wycombe Wanderers last summer and made 14 appearances for the club, scoring once. Welsh still having problems with his groin so he will miss out again. Keith Bray has been the big success story so far, so hopefully he will get some game time.

 

Airdrieonians have lost Justin Devenny since we last played them a month ago. The 19 year old Northern Irishman has joined Crystal Palace. Player Manager Rhys McCabe left Firhill on a stretcher and is out for a couple of months at least with a knee injury. Calum Gallagher is the top scorer this season with three goals and former Caley Jag Nikolay Todorov and Josh O'Connor have two apiece. Airdrie have signed a midfielder today in former Rangers and St Mirren youth Gavin Gallagher.

We do not have a squad good enough to compete. That much is clear now 

5 minutes ago, old caley girl said:

We do not have a squad good enough to compete. That much is clear now 

Even if we could sack Dodds and bring in the likes of Mourinho or Guardiola, they could not get this squad promoted.

The margins are so tight, all our defeats in this run have been by one goal. What seems increasingly obvious is that the defence is not strong enough and we need to make at least one signing, and that signing has to be someone who is better than what we currently have.

6 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Even if we could sack Dodds and bring in the likes of Mourinho or Guardiola, they could not get this squad promoted.

No but staying with the idiotic coach that we have will get us demoted so to speak . 

8 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Even if we could sack Dodds and bring in the likes of Mourinho or Guardiola, they could not get this squad promoted.

Fully agree here, 

Doddsie must be swearing under his breath why the team don’t stick to his game plan and tactics. What more can the manager and coaches do to get these players to carry out his instructions and get the results he deserves? 
Bc

3 minutes ago, big cherly said:

Fully agree here, 

Doddsie must be swearing under his breath why the team don’t stick to his game plan and tactics. What more can the manager and coaches do to get these players to carry out his instructions and get the results he deserves? 
Bc

Go on then - tell us what his "game plan and tactics" are.  And also tell us how you are the only other person who knows that they are 

28 minutes ago, big cherly said:

Fully agree here, 

Doddsie must be swearing under his breath why the team don’t stick to his game plan and tactics. What more can the manager and coaches do to get these players to carry out his instructions and get the results he deserves? 
Bc

Omg you poor deluded individual 

1 hour ago, big cherly said:

What a bunch of moaners! A close match by all accounts and just loosing by the odd goal away from home to a newly promoted team isn’t the end of our promotion bid! 
Hitting the bar twice and a one man advantage was an opportunity missed to take a point back up the road.
BD and SG are going nowhere, we should back them fully! 
I don’t think we are to far off turning the corner. With a turn of luck we will get the result the team and BD rightly deserves and the fans will forget this early blip!

bc

Dodds is a tactical genius. He noticed that the two goals were defensive howlers so he switched to 3 at the back because that reduced the number of defenders so fewer howlers.
Devine will get pelters for the second although Davidson had about 3 chances to hoof it before putting Devine in trouble with a pass he obviously wasn’t expecting.
Airdrie are obviously buzzing right now but what a limited side on that showing, although apparently they took County all the way. They won’t get an easier 3 points all season and they don’t half like a niggly foul. Can’t really blame them for timewasting although their keeper took it to a new art form.
Nathan Shaw was the best player by a mile so expect Uncle Roy’s Mercenaries to come calling before long. Apart from that very little to praise apart from Longshanks 😜 the sub, and possibly Gilmour who needs to keep the heid. I thought Ethan Cairns showed in flashes but was kept quiet by the no 2 Ballantine.
If Danny is the best defender we have, you know we’ve got problems.

2 hours ago, Robert said:

Thats not good. Is it the system at fault? Any signs that the players are not playing for Dodds & co?

Longstaff on for Davidson at half time so presumably Carson to right back.

Airdrie down to 10. Can we get our act together with an extra player?

Improvement in the second half but thank goodness since we were playing the majority of it against 10 men.

Losing the goal almost straight from kick-off no doubt further dented fragile confidence and belief at the moment.  We look so edgy and uncomfortable at the back just now - I think we need a left sided (and left footed) centre half with an experienced head to help the younger guys who do have ability.

The goals were callamatous to say the least.  On the plus side, Bray and Shaw continued to take the ball, tried to get us forward and attempted to create chances. 

In my opinion Billy McKay has just looked  completely isolated in the first half of every game this season.  We seemed to do less of the punting the ball up to him and hope it sticks today (thankfully) but huge work still to do in order to have a threatening looking front pairing who link up well together.  I think Brooks will come good in time and unless we unexpectedly bring in a proven goalscorer from somewhere in the next couple of days, I'd be inclined to try McKay and Lodvica from the start with Brooks in behind in the hope that we can actually take the lead in a match and then try to hold onto it rather than chase a deficit which we seem to be in the habit of doing right now.

A (non-gloating) Airdrie fan said to me when I was leaving the stadium 'I'm afraid it looks like it's going to be a difficult season for you' and it was hard to disagree.

Credit to Cameron Harper today - despite his own goal and the defeat and with some fans booing at the end, he still made his way over and showed his appreciation to the fans who had travelled for what must have been at least a minute 👍.

1 hour ago, big cherly said:

What a bunch of moaners! A close match by all accounts and just loosing by the odd goal away from home to a newly promoted team isn’t the end of our promotion bid! 
Hitting the bar twice and a one man advantage was an opportunity missed to take a point back up the road.
BD and SG are going nowhere, we should back them fully! 
I don’t think we are to far off turning the corner. With a turn of luck we will get the result the team and BD rightly deserves and the fans will forget this early blip!

bc

Did u get a bang to the head ? Wake up 

Robert said: "Credit to Cameron Harper today - despite his own goal and the defeat and with some fans booing at the end, he still made his way over and showed his appreciation to the fans who had travelled for what must have been at least a minute" 👍

Sure it takes longer than that Robert 

15 minutes ago, tm4tj said:

Robert said: "Credit to Cameron Harper today - despite his own goal and the defeat and with some fans booing at the end, he still made his way over and showed his appreciation to the fans who had travelled for what must have been at least a minute" 👍

Sure it takes longer than that Robert 

Robert?

😂 Robbo quoted Robert then said it himself.

I'm off for a lie down

2 hours ago, Yngwie said:

The margins are so tight, all our defeats in this run have been by one goal

It's really just unfair the runs of bad luck we have under Dodds isn't it? Between injuries, dressing room unrest and we just don't get the breaks on those fine margins.

The 'highlights' from yesterday now on Airdrie website ....

https://www.airdriefc.com/dtv23-24/230826

Just watched the goals. Harper was a bit unlucky that it went in as he’d tracked his man and was trying to stop him getting to it. The problem started when the Airdrie wide player got ahead of two of our players on their left and was able to pick out the ball into the box. He should have been given the space to make the run and pass.

For the second, Devine got his feet in a tangle and gifted the ball to the Airdrie player but it was a bit of a “hospital pass” from Davidson that he wasn’t expecting. Davidson could have booted the ball out of play or passed back to Ridgers, both of which were better options given there was an Airdrie player close to Devine.

Once again avoidable goals. How many have we conceded this season that we did not assist our opponents with? Not many that I can think of. 

Edited August 27, 20232 yr by Robert

3 hours ago, robbo1985 said:

The 'highlights' from yesterday now on Airdrie website ....

https://www.airdriefc.com/dtv23-24/230826

Shaw looked lively and the most likely. This giving goals away and then missing at the other end is becoming habitual and tedious. Could do with developing a habit of not giving away goals and scoring at the other end. Flick the switch…

It was obvious for more than a year that Robbie Deas would be leaving but we haven't signed a central defender to replace him.  Now we are bottom of the league making horrendous defensive errors in every game and are scrambling about trying to sign someone for that position before the deadline.

It's appalling management and planning.

Read it and weep:

https://ictfc.com/airdrieonians-2-1-ictfc-28-08-2023/