In Dodds We Trust?

 

With no wins in seven games (six defeats and a draw), it's a welcome distraction this weekend as we travel to Gayfield Park Arbroath to take on the 'Smokies' in the third round of the SPFL Trust Trophy. That's no easy task now that Arbroath have pulled their socks up after an opening day trouncing from Dundee United and back to back defeats from Queens Park in the Championship. In saying that, the first three defeats have been against two of the frontrunners in the Championship. However, It might offer us an opportunity to further bed in our latest additions who featured in the draw against the Pars last weekend. Not only that, but it'll be good practice for the Championship encounter at the end of the Month.

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Arbroath Match/Ticket Info

Supporters Bus £20

North off Scotland Cup

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Venue H2H v Arbroath

Pld

Won

Drn

Lst

For

Agst

+ / -

Home	24	17	4	3	59	19	+40
Away	22	10	6	6	30	23	+7
Neutral	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	46	27	10	9	89	42	+47

Last encounter from last season saw us win 2-0 at the Caledonian Stadium: Two of the Championship form teams clashed at the Caledonian Stadium with both clubs on good runs, Arbroath unbeaten in seven games and Inverness just the one defeat over the last seven. Both clubs needing the win for different reasons, and both clubs capable of taking the points. After a dismal first half goals from Nathan Shaw and a Scott Allardice penalty settled the points in our favour. The downside was a red card for Jay Henderson... 

Last 10 Competitive Meetings v Arbroath

2 - 0 (H)

4 - 1 (A)

1 - 1 (H)

0 - 0 (A)

0 - 0 (A)

0 - 0 (H)

3 - 0 (H)

0 - 0 (A)

0 - 1 (H)

1 - 0 (A)

Last five games including Inverness Cup

1.   Arbroath 0-4 Dundee Utd ------- Inverness 1-2 Queens Pk
2. Queens Pk 2-1 Arbroath ----------- Ayr United 1-0 Inverness 
3. Arbroath 0-1 Queens Pk ---- Clachnacuddin 1-4 ICTFC XI
4. Morton 0-3 Arbroath ------------ Airdrie 2-1 Inverness
5. Arbroath 2-1 Ayr United ----- Inverness 1-1 Dunfermline

What can we expect?

Maybe we will see a mixture of new guys, experience and fringe players. Basically anyone that's fit enough and good enough to pull on the jersey. Max Anderson and Morgan Boyes both had decent debuts last week against Dunfermline. However, after a solid first half we started to look jaded all over the park and ended up hanging on for a point. Somethings wrong that's no right and it needs fixing now. Nikola Ujdur still to arrive? Keith Bray was a second half sub last week and Maybe Cammy Mackay will get the gloves. What can Aaron Doran do for us and Billy Mckay needs to show that his extended contract was money well spent instead of having to chase back all over the park to get a kick of the ball. According to Bazza below, we can expect some fringe players in amongst the current incumbents. Welsh might be back in training soon, but the other two are longer term.

 

 

Arbroath Changes since we last played them

In: Leighton McIntosh, forward (Cove Rangers); Kenan Dunnwald-Turan, midfielder (Straelen); Jay Bird, forward (Dagenham & Redbridge); Jess Norey, midfielder (Barking); Aaron Steele (East Fife); Craig Slater, midfielder (Forfar Athletic); Jermaine Hylton, forward (Rushall Olympic); Mark Stowe, midfielder (Linlithgow Rose); Alasdair Adams, goalkeeper (Musselburgh Athletic).

Out: Lewis Banks, defender (Altrincham); Sean Adarkwa, forward (Wealdstone); Dale Hilson, forward (Stirling Albion); Cammy Gill, goalkeeper (Montrose); Kieran Shanks, forward (Peterhead); Dylan Paterson, midfielder (Linlithgow Rose); Bobby Linn, forward (Lochee United); Yasin Ben El-Mhanni, forward; Paul Komolafe, forward. Loan Out: Scott Allan. Loan ended: Dylan Tait, midfielder (Hibs); Toyosi Olusanya, midfielder (St Mirren); Scott Bitsindou, midfielder (Livingston); Steven Hetherington, midfielder (Falkirk).

 

40 minutes ago, DWH said:

Yet another embarrassment: how low do we have to go really before Dodds is shown the door?????

We have a sporting director on name only.....

What an embarrassment of a club..

 

 

 

 

 

 

W

Take the positives out of today. Dodsie believes the team is not far off a victory and is expecting the team to ‘click’ and go on a run of 9 or 10 good results! No reason that could not be next Saturday! 
There was no Coonty home game today so Robbo would have been at Gayfield today to add value! 
 

bc

Meaningless result today overall though, as we've lost but it hasn't negatively impacted our position in the league. Credit to the management team for bringing some stability and not letting our main competition in the championship move away from us.

9 minutes ago, bdu98196 said:

Meaningless result today overall though, as we've lost but it hasn't negatively impacted our position in the league. Credit to the management team for bringing some stability and not letting our main competition in the championship move away from us.

We are still only 12 points from promotion. 

 

We have halted the relegation slide. 

 

Have we ever had as bad a sustained run since we were merged? 

This is not good craic, not good craic at all. 

Dodds out 

52 minutes ago, big cherly said:

Take the positives out of today. Dodsie believes the team is not far off a victory and is expecting the team to ‘click’ and go on a run of 9 or 10 good results! No reason that could not be next Saturday! 
There was no Coonty home game today so Robbo would have been at Gayfield today to add value! 
 

bc

Are you for real? 

59 minutes ago, big cherly said:

Take the positives out of today. Dodsie believes the team is not far off a victory and is expecting the team to ‘click’ and go on a run of 9 or 10 good results! No reason that could not be next Saturday! 
There was no Coonty home game today so Robbo would have been at Gayfield today to add value! 
 

bc

 

7 minutes ago, Caleyjag said:

 

The guy is totally taking us for a ride!!!

Who is going along with this nonsense!!!!

Does he ever actually perform ANY duties for the club??

FFS : unbelievable..........

9 minutes ago, Caleyjag said:

 

Likely talent spotting from Highland League for ICT next signing

Our only chance of silverware and success this season gone. Also a great chance to lift some heads.  People forget what the cup win in 2018 did for the teams morale and confidence after an horrendous start the season. This team badly needs something to hold onto and we've chucked it away. No way will we reach the later stages the Scottish Cup unless the draw is kind to us. 

Reaching the final would've also given fans something to cheer about a day out to look forward to instead it's complete focus on what will be a long league campaign . 

Regardless of how serious this competition gets treated by the fans, board and management we can all agree that getting knocked out of the Challenge Cup in September is not good 🙄.... 

Edited September 9, 20232 yr by Super Caley Man 94

5 minutes ago, Super Caley Man 94 said:

Our only chance of silverware and success this season gone. Also a great chance to lift some heads.  People saying this game was "meaningless" certainly wasn't to me. People forget what the cup win in 2018 did for the teams morale and confidence after an horrendous start the season. This team badly needs something to hold onto and we've chucked it away. No way will we reach the later stages the Scottish Cup unless the draw is kind to us. 

Reaching the final would've also given fans something to cheer about a day out to look forward to instead it's complete focus on what will be a long league campaign  

We have the Inverness Cup in the cabinet. Silverware already festooned with ICT colours!!

bc

Edited September 9, 20232 yr by big cherly

11 minutes ago, lizi said:

Likely talent spotting from Highland League for ICT next signing

Is this for when we play  in the HL 

1 hour ago, big cherly said:

Take the positives out of today. Dodsie believes the team is not far off a victory and is expecting the team to ‘click’ and go on a run of 9 or 10 good results! No reason that could not be next Saturday! 
There was no Coonty home game today so Robbo would have been at Gayfield today to add value! 
 

bc

Perhaps Robbo was a guest at Brora ?

Masterful move by Duddsie playing squad players today. We’re obviously all set with a great plan to give Raith a doing next week so no need to give them a heads up of his tactical genius.

51 minutes ago, Caleyjag said:

 

He can fek off to county or anyone else that has money to burn . We certainly don’t have money to waste on him or ceo . 

2 hours ago, caley1 said:

He can fek off to county or anyone else that has money to burn . We certainly don’t have money to waste on him or ceo . 

Apparently Dodds is on a 2 year contract (surprise surprise!!!!!), so I guess we can't afford to give him the boot.....................

No excuses on the Robbo front though : also believe he can be seen watching the odd shinty match...........

We need to get back to when we seemed to be able to pick up out of contract guys mainly down south who more often than not seemed to gel with each other and turned that into a winning mentality. Not quite sure what the current team train at in between matches...

I always questioned why this was Dodds first job as a number one at his age, when he has always been a number two! And as for the two year contract, that just smacks of jobs for the boys. His contract was up, the club could have let him walk out the door without compensation, but they decided to give him a two year deal and now he would walk away with a nice tidy sum, if we could afford it, which we can't. I only hope that there are some conditions related to the contract, like we have to have so many wins or so many points by a certain date, but I won't hold my breath on that score.

Today's game would have been a great way of getting some form and confidence back into the team, if we had of played our strongest team, instead, we let possibly one of our rivals down at the bottom of the table, get a psychological advantage over us, so we go into our next crucial game, with low expectations, no form, and Dodds no wiser to our best eleven, formation and tactics. I look at all the teams in the league and can't see where any wins will come from.

1 hour ago, Jaggernaut said:

I always questioned why this was Dodds first job as a number one at his age, when he has always been a number two! And as for the two year contract, that just smacks of jobs for the boys. His contract was up, the club could have let him walk out the door without compensation, but they decided to give him a two year deal and now he would walk away with a nice tidy sum, if we could afford it, which we can't. I only hope that there are some conditions related to the contract, like we have to have so many wins or so many points by a certain date, but I won't hold my breath on that score.

Today's game would have been a great way of getting some form and confidence back into the team, if we had of played our strongest team, instead, we let possibly one of our rivals down at the bottom of the table, get a psychological advantage over us, so we go into our next crucial game, with low expectations, no form, and Dodds no wiser to our best eleven, formation and tactics. I look at all the teams in the league and can't see where any wins will come from.

Exactly we should always put out our best team in any cup game!

 

10 hours ago, IBM said:

Exactly we should always put out our best team in any cup game!

Gotta disagree with that. We should play our strongest team in league and Scottish Cup matches. This diddy cup is the ideal opportunity to rest some players who play every other match, and more importantly give fringe players and youngsters some experience and a chance to show what they can do in a competitive game. If you can’t do that in this fixture, when can you do it?

Some of the squad players took their chance, and in the highlights Cammy stood out in particular.

Edited September 10, 20232 yr by Yngwie

We made 8 changes yesterday, and had a central midfield of 2 inexperienced teenagers (talented though they are). Arbroath took the competition more seriously and fielded a strong side. To me the result didn’t matter much.

What does concern me a lot is that defence was a pretty strong line up but still looked all over the place at times and individuals were far too easily beaten when challenging for the ball. Very worrying. A vulnerable defence is a sure fire way to get relegated.

I take it Duffy was the half time fall guy this week for his part in our gifts to Arbroath.

It looked like we were lucky just to concede 4. 

47 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Gotta disagree with that. We should play our strongest team in league and Scottish Cup matches. This diddy cup is the ideal opportunity to rest some players who play every other match, and more importantly give fringe players and youngsters some experience and a chance to show what they can do in a competitive game. If you can’t do that in this fixture, when can you do it?

Some of the squad players took their chance, and in the highlights Cammy stood out in particular.

Kind of agree here. Was listening to the bbc radio yesterday Dundee United - Dunfermline game, and it seemed that it was a training match for both teams. Dunfermline knew they’d loose and put out a pub team ‘level’. 
 

Mickey Mouse cup for M-M teams and is treated like such! No wonder the fans don’t turn out for these nothing tournaments.

bc

Those highlights made for painful viewing, but not as painful as listening to Dodds post match interview.  He's either very deluded, or thinks fans are stupid, probably a bit of both.

2 hours ago, Robert said:

I take it Duffy was the half time fall guy this week for his part in our gifts to Arbroath.

It looked like we were lucky just to concede 4. 

I take it back about Duffy. He’d picked up a knock:

https://ictfc.com/arbroath-4-2-ictfc-09-09-2023/