Inverness fail to turn up

Celtic brushed aside a lack lustre Inverness to go into the next round of the Scottish Cup. Inverness only managed one decent effort on target but big Fraser Forster dived full length to turn the ball round the post. Celtic dominated thereafter and cruised to victory with Georgios Samaras capitalising on an error by Ross Tokely to smash an angled drive through Jonny Tuffey who should have done better, and the game was beyond Inverness when once more David Proctor gave away a penalty, converted comfortably by Scott Brown.

A well below capacity crowd had little to shout about at the home end, in stark contrast the away fans were in a mood to party and conga'd the afternoon away. Seeing as the team couldn't be bothered to put the effort in, I can't be bothered to write a report.

Inverness fans were not best pleased by their sides contribution in this game and I will let them tell the story of the day we never turned up.

First up is Tichy_Blacks_Back who commented during the match:- Celtic don't look anything special on first half showing but just not too sure how Tel will change it to give us more bite. Tuffey looked to have misjudged Samaras's shot even though it moved in the air but not a whole lot. Thought Ross has worked hard and Hayes may just be trying too hard to impress.

Alex Macleod was still confident at half-time though:- Forty three minutes of good play and two minutes of madness puts us one behind. Repeat the forty three minutes with 110% concentration and we can still do it.

RiG observed:- I think that victory for Celtic was the definition of "routine win".

ICTPAISLEY was less than impressed:- I've been looking forward to that game for a while now and to be honest it bored me. Up until their first goal the game was going well and we were holding our own. Then a lapse from Tokely, Proctor and Tuffey means we concede a very soft goal. 2 minutes later and Tokely was at it again but this time he was even more stupid, rolling the ball back to Tuffey with Hooper in his way but luckily we got away with it. The goal in the 2nd half was just as bad, Proctors attempt to block Hooper and allow the ball to roll out evidently failed and Proctor in a clumsy panic barges into Hooper for us to concede yet another penalty this season. Hooper might have gone down easily but there can't be any complaints as there was definate contact, Proctor had no chance of getting the ball and was reckless.

We created a couple decent chances and had a claim for a penalty at one stage but apart from that this game was just going through the motions and was a very routine 2-0 win to Celtic.

I thought Nick Ross was doing fairly decent today and was surprised when it was him coming off and not Hayes who had a complete nightmare, I don't know if it was because he was pushed to far forward but he never got going in the match at all. A bit of hope came when Sutherland and Gnapka were brought on and Sutherland looked promising and for 10 minutes we looked like we might equalise but our pressure came to nothing. Gnapka had a very poor game and if i hadn't heard of all the hype from the last match i'd have thought he was a mediocre player at best.

Pass marks today are for Gillet and Shinnie but overall a poor performance from us. We went on a great run unbeaten so to lose today isn't really a surprise just a bit dissapointing to lose out on Hampden yet again. Maybe next week we can get the shock win we all crave

DavieB  was also not chuffed:- We gifted them both goals, and to be honest, we could still be playing now and wouldn't have scored. Our sole tactic in the first half seemed to be to just lump it up to Tade...who had no chance against their defenders. And surely Terry must realise by now that Tade is never going to be an out and out striker. He's alright out on the wing, but that's about it.

First goal was a total cock-up by Tokely. Mind, Tuffey should've still saved it. It might've had some power in it, and swerved, but it was straight at him, and seemed to just go through his hands. Second half...same as the first. We were totally outplayed. Proctor thought the ball was going out, it wasn't. Clear penalty. Game over.

Oh well, not that I really expected anything from the game anyway, but I can't remember the last time we made it so easy for one of the OF.

Even less happy was Hislopsoffsideagain:- Rubbish game, rubbish result, rubbish performance, rubbish weather, rubbish attendance.

Did I mention it was rubbish?

To be fair we were making Celtic work very hard until their first goal - I haven't seen the TV pictures but I had several texts from friends watching the game on Sky who also highlighted Proctor's failure to track Samaras for the first goal. However the fact is that Tokely made a complete dog's dinner of it and, for all the power and swerve in Samaras' shot, Tuffey seemed to get two hands on it. I'm staggered that, in a game of such importance, Butcher decided to use our second choice keeper. I don't care about keeping Tuffers happy - the cup is the only chance we'll ever have of winning anything (and even a replay would have been worth £££), so Esson should blatantly have been in goal.

After we fell behind, we seemed to switch to some sort of 5-4-1 system with Gillet slotted in as a third centre-back and Shinnie and Meekings as wingbacks...which was a foolish move as it just condemned us to being cramped in our own half. We never looked remotely like scoring in the second half. I didn't agree with the substitutions either - Nick Ross was having a much better game than most of his teammates, and I'd much rather have had Tade on the pitch than Sutherland.

The second goal was even more farcical than the first - initially Tuffey's throw out to Sutherland was risky at best, then Sutherland gave the ball away and put us in trouble, and finally Proc made a hash of shielding the ball out and bundled the forward over for a penalty. And that, as they say, was that.

Pass marks to Gillet and Ross, but that's about it. I felt quite let down by the lack of fight we showed in the second half. Opportunities for glory don't come around all that often for ICT players - and they well and truly blew their chance today to make a name for themselves.

Was thinking after the game about our centre half situation - for me, Hogg, Golobart and Williams are our best centre-backs (all of whom were injured), and Gillet is probably the next best. So today we had, for me, our 5th and 6th best central defenders on the pitch. I'd like to see any other SPL team keep out Celtic with their 5th and 6th centre backs on the field!

Doofers Dad was more philosophical:- What makes this so disappointing was that this was the poorest Celtic side I have seen at TCS, they were there for the taking and too few of the team seemed to be up for it. The match stats indicate that it was generally pretty even and in general I think that is a fair reflection with neither side really posing any serious threat. The difference was really two moments of defensive madness which led to the two goals. I simply don't understand why Esson was not playing if he was fully fit.

Credit where credit is due though. Samaras took his goal very sweetly and Celtic defended well. Our front players are being criticised here but to some extent they played as well as they were allowed to play. Celtic were very effective at closing down quickly and cutting out the through balls as soon as things got potentially threatening. Foran put in a tireless shift and tried to lift his team but with little effect. We only ever got half chances and nobody had the quality to exploit them or to create anything better.

I have been a bit criticical of Nick Ross in the past but for me he was our best player today and I was disappointed he was subbed so early. Apart from giving away the penalty I thought Proctor did well. It is easy to pillory players for obvious errors but the stats show Celtic had very few attempts at goal and that is a reflection of what was generally a pretty solid defensive performance from our team although Meekings was very poor when going forward.

One should always try to take something positive out of a disappointing situation. The positive today is that Jonny Hayes will definitely not be joining Celtic.

Renegade was a bit puzzled:- I have no qualms about that result whatsoever. ICT were poor and never got going at all. They weren't even beaten by the better team, just one that wasn't as bad. The game could be still going on right now and the score still begin with "Inverness nil". There was no bite on that team at all, with nobody who really looks like they are capable of scoring goals - but then what do expect of a front four that contains three wingers and a left full back? The selection itself was odd - where was Shinnie meant to be playing? He seemed to switch from sitting behind the striker, to left wing to full back. Why wasn't Gillet at centre back to cover Tokely with Shinnie at full back, with either Sutherland or Gnakpa playing out wide? Surely that would've made a lot more sense. I'm also of the opinion that Tokely plays best at centre back when he has someone alongside him who can act almost as a sweeper. Gillet would've been perfect for that role today.

Davie can have the final say:- That game was almost as disappointing as reading this forum. As a team, we didn't turn up. Never mind the individual errors, which have been done to death here, we didn't compete in midfield and the supply to the front was pretty well limited to long balls. What got me was that the best way for us to deal with Celtic was to play a high tempo game and disrupt them. Yet almost everything; crowd, pitch, weather, even the anouncer was so low key. Onwards and (hopefully) upwards.

So,there you have it folks, straight from the horses mouths, and almost unanimous about the dismal performance and likewise for top players, Nick Ross and Kenny Gillet escaped most criticism and Richie Foran worked tirelessly, but on a day when you need to be at your best, too few bothered to turn up.

Back to SPL business mext weekend and lets hope we get that game out of our system before then, as it's Celtic who are the opponents once more.