Painful viewing

Inverness slumped to their worst ever home defeat to Celtic as they were humiliated on their own pitch by a rampant Celtic.

The gulf in class was clearly evident as the champions strolled to an embarrassingly easy win over a hapless bunch of journeymen and kids as our two experienced heads sat in the stand, unable to participate because of rashness akin to schoolboys.

I won't go into great detail, but suffice to say that Celtic bossed this game from the start until the last ten minutes when the industrious Ross Draper stole a couple of goals to deny Celtic a much more emphatic win that their superiority deserved.

I'm sorry to report that this was certainly a case of men against boys, and Celtic were not the boys. We were like rabbits caught in the headlights, simply overwhelmed by the champions who were able to cut us open every time they got the ball. The only surprise was that it was only 2-0 at half time as Mulgrew cracked the bar with a brilliant free kick and numerous chances went astray, or Esson denied them the glory of more goals.

As early as the fourth minute, the imposing Wanyama rose unchallenged to power a header home. It was a mystery how Celtic took another twenty minutes to increase their lead, but there was nothing surer, they were going to do it sooner or later. Watt brushed aside a powder puff challenge to waltz through the Inverness back line and coolly slot the ball behind an exposed Ryan Esson.

Inverness were all at sea at this point especially Raven who was caught out time and time again. Our midfield was non-existent and our strikers were nowhere to be seen.

Half Time 0-2

The misery was piled on after the resumption and it was no surprise when Celtic went 3-0 up with a superb text book strike straight off the training ground, Mulgrew doing the needful. Watt stroked home his second and Celtic's fourth as the disgruntled home support could scarcely watch, many now removing themselves from the scene to relieve the pain. At this point, had it been under the Marquess of Queensberry rules, then the referee would have stopped the contest, or Butcher would have thrown in the towel.

We did though, bounce back off the ropes and Draper scored a couple of consolation goals as Celtic took their foot off the gas......thank Christ for that. The second being set up nicely with a chipped cross from Conor Pepper who continues to show promise.

Full Time 2-4

Inverness CT: Esson, Raven (Meekings 54), Graeme Shinnie,Warren, McKay, Draper, Andrew Shinnie, Ross (Pepper 66),King, Doran, Sutherland (Morrison 54). Subs not used: Reguero (GK), Laing, Polworth, Whyte.

Celtic: Forster, Matthews (Bangura 68), Izaguirre (Chalmers 76), Wilson,McCourt, Mulgrew, Lustig, Watt, Twardzik, Wanyama, Hooper (Forrest 65). Sub not used: Zaluska (GK), Slane, Irvine, McGregor.

Referee: Willie Collum.

Attendance: 6,100.

A six goal thriller? No, an absolutely embarrassing humiliation and we were fortunate not to lose another half dozen goals.

Where do we go from here? To be honest there is little we can do but get behind the team, remember, for better or for worse. Times are hard, there is no money in the kitty and we will find it difficult to be competitive this season. That I'm afraid is the economics of the game in the lower echelons of the SPL.

I may have been harsh in my chosen words, but sadly, that is the reality of the day, a day where thousands more witnessed it on telly. There is little point in constantly sniping about Butcher when his hands are tied by the finances, what we see is what we get, and what we get is what we see. You can't buy the quality of players we see on TV every week with no money and we will just have to go with what we have at the moment.

Ross Draper was our man of the match, unfortunately there were eleven better ones wearing green on Saturday. However, we have a league of our own within the SPL and that is the games where we need to channel our energies towards, against teams at our level as this is going to be a difficult season for more than just Inverness.

It's all doom and gloom. We just have to write off these games against Celtic as we can't compete against their multi-million pound charges, but we need to keep an eye on the Dundee's the St Johnstone's and the St Mirren's of this league, they are our real competitors.

Let's get behind the team, they need our support more than ever.