Morais Double Earns Valuable Points

With 5 teams battling for safety at the lower end of the table todays match-up between Inverness Caledonian Thistle and St Mirren was another in a string of proverbial 6 pointers.

Things didn't look like going to plan when the ball bounced off the legs of Djebi-Zadi and landed perfectly at the feet of Dorman who put the visitors ahead after only 7 minutes.

However, 5 minutes before the break and a great move saw a long ball forward to Proctor who flicked it on to Imrie who flicked it on again to tee up Filipe Morais who drove the ball home from 20 yards.

2 minutes after the re-start and Morais was on the scoresheet again.  A quick throw setting up the opportunity which was put away with clever ball into the bottom left corner from 17 yards out.

tm4tj summed up:

Good win, two cracking goals from Morais and an excellent shift from Foran and Imrie, who did the usual 110%, but wasted some good possesion when his final ball let him down. He also had a netbound chip cleared off the six yard box with the keeper stranded. Tokely was also brilliant today, and his wing wizardy was scintillating. We were well on top after scoring our second goal but ended up sitting deeper and deeper as Mirren pushed forward. Gameplan worked in the end but left the fans a bit uncomfortable at the death. Barrowman was left chasing hopeless punts at the end as a lone striker. He does win his fair share in the air, but with no one to assist him it was a waste of time literally. Three points and further away from relegation. Still 21 points to play for, but top six is not achievable now.

Alternative Maryhill saw it like this:

Up north for a rare home game. Glad I came up now, but I wouldn't have said that if you'd asked me at half three.

The first half hour was absolutely dreadful. We didn't keep the ball on the deck at all: it was more of the same aimless punting from Granty and Lionel that we saw at Falkirk, with the midfield being bypassed and nothing sticking up front. Admittedly the wind was pretty bad and it was quite wet at that point, but St Mirren still managed to knock it about quite well and deserved their lead. I didn't see exactly what happened in the build-up, but the ball across the box definitely came from Lionel's area, and the scorer (was it Dorman?) was in so much much space he'd have had time to pour a pint of Guinness before sticking it in the net. The defence looked pretty uncertain right through that first period, Fraser included. Think Mikey must have been wearing clowns shoes: his kicking was atrocious.

Toward the end of the first half, though we did start trying to play it on the ground and down the wings, and it made a huge difference. Morais took his goal really well - first time on the half-volley I think - and we had a couple more dangerous moves before half time. We started the second half in the same vein and looked completely different team from the one that had started the match. Morais' movement was really good and he had some great touches, although not all of them came off and he went down too easily a couple of times. Great second goal, though - made space for himself on the edge of the area and stuck it in at the near post. Imrie worked his @rse off, chasing everything down and taking on and beating players - easily my MotM. If we stay up, he deserves a lot of credit for it. Thought Kerr put in a very good shift in the second half too.

The last 20-25 minutes were pretty poor again. Very strange sub by Butcher - replacing Morais with Barrowman. Fair enough, Morais might have been knackered, but I would have stuck on Odhiambo, replacing like with like, because the St Mirren defenders really struggled to cope with the movement of Morais and Imrie together. As soon as Barrowman came on, all the pace went out of the attack. I can't fault Barrowman's effort today (for a change), but he wasn't even reaching the ball to hold it up or reaching the box in time to meet balls coming in from wide. After Imrie was replaced by Duff it was a bit backs-to-the-wall, because there wasn't enough pace left in the team to hold the ball up. There was one sublime moment, though, just around the time the additional time board went up, when Rosscoe absolutely sprinted after the ball to take it into the corner at the bridge end, and got flattened by a frustrated defender. He picked himself up and gave the home supporters this grin of total triumph. Legend.

Great feeling to be up to 9th now, and hopefully the players and management will realise from this performance that we are at our most effective and dangerous when we try to play proper passing football and we play with two fast, skilful front men.