After the Wind

 

It's our third away game on the trot as we head for Alloa on Saturday should Storm Eowyn relent sufficiently to allow Alloa to host our League1 encounter at Recreation Park. It's scheduled for a 3:00pm kick off and is the shortest trip of the trio of away days which has given us one win at Annan and a defeat at Queen of the South so far. Nine points in the last six games for Inverness whilst Alloa have gathered seven points from their last six games.

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Match/Ticket/Travel/Info

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INVERNESS CT  The Season So Far

D L  D D W D D D L   / W L(11)D W W W L  W L  

W W L  

Since Scott Kellacher was handed the reins in game 11, there has been a more positive approach to our matches which has resulted in improved performances and a more enjoyable matchday experience all round. Alas we were brought back to earth with a disappointing result in our last game of 2024, a crushing 1-4 defeat at home to Cove Rangers. We'll have to put that one down to a bad day at the office. However, we bounced back in our first game of the second half of the season in the six pointer against Dumbarton with a hard fought 2-0 win. That win over Dumbarton was a vital one and the introduction of Alfie Bavidge was a welcome one as he opened the scoring early in the first half. Charlie Gilmour slotted in the clincher in the second half to give us a cushion over the Sons and to narrow the gap on Annan to seven points. We took part in the only League1 game last weekend and came away from Annan with a resounding 3-0 win, Alfie Bavidge netting again with Keith Bray and then Billy Mckay from the spot.  It was then on to Palmerston on the Tuesday night but in a five goal encounter we went down 3-2. Alfie Bavidge notched his third goal in three games and Keith Bray added a second but goals from Adam Brooks (2) and Jordan Allan kept the points in Dumfries. Oh well, on to Alloa on Saturday...

Plenty of positives to be taken from the defeat against Queen of the South in midweek. Alfie Bavidge is on form with three from three and Keith Bray added his third League goal of the season. Luis Longstaff was a big miss at Palmerston having been injured at Annan last Saturday.

We threw away a two goal lead on our last visit to Recreation Park after Conor Sammon came on and changed the game. Danny Devine and Calum MacLeod had put us in the driving seat but goals from Sammon and Luke Donnelly earned the Wasps a point. In November a Charlie Gilmour goal was the difference between the sides at the Caledonian Stadium as the Caley Jags took the points in a 1-0 win.

Pos	Team	Pld	Gd	Pts
1	Arbroath	20	8	34
2	Stenny	21	9	32
3	Kelty Hearts	21	9	31
4	Alloa Ath	21	4	29
5	Queens	21	-3	29
6	Cove	20	5	28
7	Montrose	20	-2	24
8	Annan Ath	21	-19	20
9	Inverness CT	21	1	16
10	Dumbarton	20	-12	07

 

Inverness CT Latest Team News

Scott Kellacher talking at press/media conference:

On Luis Longstaff “ He got a real bad dead leg. He’s going to be 50-50 for the match this weekend. He was a real big loss for us the other night because he’s a big player for us.”

If he's giving nothing else away then that may be our major doubt, therefore expect us to be along similar lines to midweek against Queens. In fairness, we don't have much options available anyway given our predicament.

Alloa Athletic: W L  L  L  W D 

A 2-0 win at Kelty was followed by three defeats on the trot to Montrose, Cove and Stenhousemuir (1-2, 2-0, 1-3). Highlight for Alloa would be their next game, a 3-1 win at Arbroath. They then drew 1-1 at home to Queen of the South last Saturday. Seven points from their last six League games.

Luke Donnelly is top scorer with six goals backed up by the vastly experienced Conor Sammon (5) and Luke Rankin (5)

Here's how Alloa lined up in the draw with Queen of the South last week. They have since added a couple of loan signings: Josh Gentles a striker from Rangers and Charlie Dewar a defender from Dundee United.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second half much more even than the first, but it would have been a bit of a travesty if we hadn’t won that match.

Annan have just made it 2-2 in the last minute ffs...

2-2 at Annan-Montrose now

7 minutes ago, KennySim93 said:

Annan have just made it 2-2 in the last minute ffs...

You beat me. But with the full time score in, we can leapfrog Annan with a win next week, and then it is just a short hop up to catch Montrose. C'mon Caley 

1 hour ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

I was just about to say that 3 bookings in 3 minutes surely meant that the game was getting away from us.

It’s more the case that this ref was incredibly card happy, the card seemed to be coming out even for simple fouls, as well as for some great tackles (which is what Billy’s seemed to be).

On the subject of tackles, that was one of our strengths today, we were tenacious in winning the ball and dispossessing the Alloa players.

That’s a superb result ending a tough road trip week!
 

A 6 point haul from the three games, including a mighty effort at Palmerston on Tuesday, must be a real confidence booster. Bring it on…

Charlie Dewar started his first game with Josh Gentles on the bench for the hosts. Luis Longstaff failed to make the starting XI or the bench with Alfie Stewart starting again for an unchanged visitors. Inverness took a first half lead through a Keith Bray header but immediately after the break Cameron O'Donnell equalised however Alfie Stewart got his first goal for Inverness with ten minutes remaining. We saw out the game thereafter and took a big step towards safety.

2 hours ago, Yngwie said:

Second half much more even than the first, but it would have been a bit of a travesty if we hadn’t won that match.

Better to stay in League 1 and build foundations for the future.

Starting with -5 points in Championship could see us going straight back down at the end of the season. 

26 minutes ago, Duke of Inverness said:

Better to stay in League 1 and build foundations for the future.

Starting with -5 points in Championship could see us going straight back down at the end of the season. 

We'll be out of administration by then and hopefully under ownership of people invested in Inverness as we used to be.

I've been to 3 of the last 4 away matches : what has impressed me is that we have so much more fight and energy than we have had for years. It's actually good to watch. The players are again playing for the club.

Very optimistic we'll catch Montrose by mid / end of February and then who knows....

Never a dirty game but Alloa led us on bookings 4-1 before we came back to 4-4 but they snatched it with a last minute card 😂

Should have been out of sight at ht. Bavidge was probably poorer than usual but was unlucky when his drive came off the inside of the post. Paid for it within a minute of the restart and Alloa had a good spell for 15 minutes when we could have conceded. Any worries about tiredness after all the long away trips soon evaporated as we took control and forced corner after corner. Billy had a good chance but his legs gave up on him, then Stewart grabbed the winner, in a game where he started to show a bit of overdue class. 
What a player Keith Bray is. What a support we have right now. 

It’s been a long 8 days and we have covered a lot of miles. Well done the team on coming out of it with six out of nine points. And well done the fans who travelled to support them. We are amassing the points and heading out of playoffs. Our team are doing us proud. Off for a wee celebratory dram now. Oidhche Mhath. 

Here is the league table on our last 6 games, lets hope we can keep it up.

 

Another great result as we close in on Annan.

Priority and focus has to remain on getting away from the bottom of the table and we can't afford to get carried away with looking too far up.

An Annan draw with Montrose helps keep both within touching distance so if one or other goes on a wee run then hopefully we catch the other.

Looking forward to a home game next weekend and welcoming the team back after a tough run of away matches.

 

54 minutes ago, IBM said:

Here is the league table on our last 6 games, let’s hope we can keep it up.

More remarkably, without our 15 point penalty we’d be level on points with Arbroath at the top, compared to the end of October when we were bottom of the league on merit ie even without the deduction.

What an impact the change of manager has had. Well done SK.

44 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

What an impact the change of manager has had.

A manager cannot afford just to be passionate about becoming a manager - he has to also be passionate about his club, and Scott definitely is. Well done to all today.

A great result. Well done all.

It’s worth observing that we’ve not drawn any of our last 10 league games and we’ve won 7 of them.

What a change in mindset and approach. 

3 hours ago, Yngwie said:

More remarkably, without our 15 point penalty we’d be level on points with Arbroath at the top, compared to the end of October when we were bottom of the league on merit ie even without the deduction.

What an impact the change of manager has had. Well done SK.

While that is true in terms of points, if we hadn't had the points deduction, that would most likely mean we'd still be stuck with Dunc, and I highly doubt we'd have seen this uptick in form under him.  I'm not even sure we'd have reached our current points total under him!

Just going to echo what everyone else has said, that the change in attitude in the team has been fantastic. When I saw it was 1-1, I had visions of results from last season where we'd look like taking the lead again only to throw it away with a silly mistake.

Better fortunes on the field, with the whole squad, from manager down, clearly giving their all, has led to a much more positive feeling on this website too. As a less frequent contributor these days, but a regular reader, it is a pleasure to come on every day and see everyone's comments. Despite the still difficult financial situation, there is definitely some optimism on the site now.

Long may it continue , and well done to the team and everyone who has helped improve things.

Onwards and upwards

Wonder what Big Dunc's doing with himself these days

 

4 minutes ago, buckett said:

Wonder what Big Dunc's doing with himself these days

 

Don't care

2 hours ago, buckett said:

Wonder what Big Dunc's doing with himself these days

 

This will be his internal monologue every week

2 hours ago, buckett said:

Wonder what Big Dunc's doing with himself these days

Revising the final chapter of his upcoming autobiography.