Great while it lasted.

Oh well, the run is over !!!! After going 19 away league games unbeaten covering the full calendar year of 2010, the first game of 2011 saw that record evaporate.

Collin Samuel scored in 85 minutes of the game and Caley Thistle had no reply. In fact, without Jonny Hayes' presence in the last few games, Caley Thistle have had no reply to anything !!!

It was fantastic while it lasted, and it had to come to an end at some time, but when it came we let it slip away without too much fight, and if I'm honest, this has been coming for a while now.  That's not to take anything away from the year long sequence of undefeated away results on SFL & SPL duty, but maybe it is for the greater good of the overall performances that we have got the good monkey off the back and we can now concentrate on picking up points at home as well as on the road.

I suppose we should really be congratulating St Johnstone rather than bemoaning our loss today, after all, they have done something that none of the other teams managed.  However, the manner of the defeat is what will be concerning the Inverness fans, after losing three very winnable games on the trot, three games that could have seen us all but safe for another SPL season and even pushing for top six.  It could yet be a long and arduous road until the end of the season and the return of Jonny Hayes will be a bonus, so still plenty to look forward to.

Alternative Maryhill has the grim task of sharing the details with us all.

In the end it came not with a bang but with a whimper. Caley Thistle’s long unbeaten away run is over, and there is something very ICT about the fact that it ended on a grey winter’s afternoon against a lower-placed team rather than at the ground of a better-resourced, title-challenging side. Many supporters yesterday admitted to feeling slightly relieved that the run was over, believing that it had become a distraction, an additional pressure and possibly even a contributing factor to the team’s poor home form. There may be some truth in that and the biggest concern about yesterday was not really the final result, but the utter poverty of the side’s performance. In terms of invention and confidence, this ICT looked a million miles away from the team that dismantled Dundee United just a few month ago, and if they continue to play like they did yesterday, then the players will struggle to win another game all season. Considering the time of the year, there was a fine ICT support in attendance yesterday, probably somewhere between three and four hundred, and they deserved better, not only from the players but also from the St Johnstone stewards. Naelifts has already summarised their killjoy tactics very eloquently on the forum; suffice to say that if it is the aim of these guys to drive attendances down even further, then they are going the right way about it. Typically, the Caley Thistle supporters dealt with the persistent harassment with good humour and a few choruses of ‘sit doon for the Caley Jags’, and by the second half the stewards had got bored and given up trying to force everyone back into their seats, which raises the question: why bother in the first place? There were lots of calls for Terry Butcher to freshen up the team for this game after the successive defeats against St Mirren and Kilmarnock, and sure enough, he made changes. Few would have predicted the line-up that took the field for ICT yesterday, however. Richie Foran and Russell Duncan were dropped to the bench. Chris Innes came back into central defence, with Ross Tokely going to right back and Stuart Duff moving into midfield. Gil Blumenshtein also came into the side, playing what I assume was supposed to be a wide attacking role in support of Rooney, with Odhiambo on the opposite side. Innes had a solid enough game defensively, but Blumenshtein was utterly anonymous, and on yesterday’s evidence it is hard to see what he can bring to the side. Throughout the first half there was a clear lack of strength and bite up front, and no real composure or creativity anywhere in the side. If the purpose of the changes was to improve the passing in midfield and to allow better attacking play in the wide areas, then they did not work, unfortunately. The long ball is back, and that is always a bad sign for Caley Thistle. The first half, was, in all honesty, pretty poor viewing all round. St Johnstone looked more inventive in possession, particularly Chris Millar and winger Cleveland Taylor, and they created the better of the chances. Esson saved well from Taylor, Peter McDonald and from a Millar cross that deflected off Graham Shinnie towards the goal, and Liam Craig also went narrowly wide with a close-range header. Caley Thistle’s best opportunity fell to Adam Rooney, whose shot from eighteen yards after running onto a ball from Nick Ross was parried by Peter Enckelman. The rebound fell to Rooney and he had the chance to play in Odhiambo, but pulled his cut back too far behind his team-mate. Apart from these chances, though, the half was dominated by scrappy midfield battles and ineffective punts and crosses that were too easily dealt with.

Half Time 0-0 At half time the consensus among the ICT supporters I spoke to was that the game had been poor and the team’s performance frustratingly ineffective, but that things could only get better. For a while, it seemed this was going to be the case. Terry Butcher has been criticised recently for not making changes quickly enough when the team is underperforming. He could not be accused of that yesterday. Richie Foran was brought on for Gil Blumenshtein at the start of the second half, and immediately made a difference, adding more aggression in midfield, more invention and accuracy to the team’s passing, and bringing Odhiambo into the game more. For the first fifteen minutes of the second half, Caley Thistle controlled most of the play: the only spell in the game when they looked the better side. Despite this, however, they created very few decent chances: Odhiambo was presented with a decent opportunity after neat build-up play from Foran and Ross, but despite making room for himself well, hit a weak final shot at the keeper; the closest ICT actually came to scoring in this period was when Nick Ross got himself free on the right hand side of the pitch and mishit a deep cross, which glanced off the crossbar. As the second half wore on, more uncertainty crept into ICT’s play, and St Johnstone came back into the game and began creating chances again. Ryan Esson had to make sharp saves from Dave Mackay, Sam Parkin and, on 75 minutes, from substitute Collin Samuel, after a poor Munro header back to his goalkeeper fell short of Esson and into Samuel’s path. In between times, Danny Grainger also had a chance inside the box, but shot over the bar after being closed down well by Esson. With St Johnstone looking the more likely to score, Terry Butcher made his second change and again resisted the temptation to give an opportunity to Dani Sanchez, instead replacing Lee Cox with Shane Sutherland. Sutherland worked characteristically hard but failed to make any real impact on the game. With about ten minutes remaining, St Johnstone had a decent claim for a penalty when Samuel’s downward header appeared to strike Grant Munro’s hand, but the referee ignored the appeals. Then, on 83 minutes, IC T almost grabbed an unexpected, and undeserved, lead when Eric Odhiambo latched onto a header across the area and hit a shot that took a slight deflection, forcing Peter Enckelman into a full-length save to tip the ball round his post. Two minutes later, however, St Johnstone got the goal their superior play merited. From a corner which the ICT defence failed to clear, Dave Mackay got a shot in. Ryan Esson made a block, and for a moment it looked as if he had saved Caley Thistle yet again, but Collin Samuel was first to the rebound and he hammered the ball into the roof of the net. St Johnstone 1 – Inverness Caledonian Thistle 0 From that point, there was only going to be one winner. In sharp contrast to the Celtic game just five weeks previously, there seemed to be no self-belief among the players, and no sign of them being able to raise their game to create any real threat to St Johnstone. The solitary opportunity they had was a shot by Shane Sutherland, which was comfortably saved by Enckelman. At the end of the game, many of the ICT supporters remained to applaud in tribute to what the team had achieved with their thirteen-month unbeaten away run; most of the players, however, appeared too dejected to notice or acknowledge this as they trooped off the field. What now then for this Caley Thistle side? Despite three straight defeats and no wins in six games, there is no crisis in Inverness yet. Every team is likely to go through a poor period at some stage of the season, and ICT’s sudden dip in form has probably acquired greater significance precisely because the team has performed so well over the first part of the season. If ICT are going to turn their form around again, however, it is a little difficult at the moment to see exactly where the inspiration will come from. There is no guarantee of new signings this month, with the manager admitting that players will have to be moved on before others can be brought in, and although the return of Jonny Hayes should add some much needed pace and creativity to the attack, it is not healthy or fair to assume that he will make the vital difference between losing and winning. Yet both last season and this, Terry Butcher has proved himself to be a good motivator, and also someone who is unafraid to make changes and take unpopular decisions. We may not always agree with his team selections, but it is better that we have a manager who is prepared to keep examining his own decisions and change if necessary, rather than someone who adopts an ostrich mentality, or lays all the blame at the players’ feet. The hope is, though, that he can find the winning blend again sooner rather than later: hopefully Elgin in the cup next week will be the first step in that direction.

Great report Maryhill, I think that just about sums up the feelings of most fans.