Leaderboard

Hayes Back at Inverness Jonny Hayes will be returning to Inverness on saturday, unfortunately only briefly as he will be playing for Aberdeen in this weekend's SPL fixture at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium. This will be Hayes' first visit to Inverness since joining the Dons at the end of last season and he will be relishing the prospect of lining up against his old team mates. I'm not sure our own fans are quite as enthusiastic about his return, but we have to get on with life after Hayes. The jury are still out on the Inverness back four after a second consecutive four goal bashing, Motherwell equalling Celtic's tally against us. It was a better performance than the scoreline suggests, but gifting goals has become an unwanted trait as this seasons newcomers look to settle down and give the free scoring forwards something to build on. Aaron Doran gave himself a massive confidence boost in midweek scoring twice for the Irish u21's in a stunning 4-2 victory in Italy. If he can transfer this form into the SPL games, then we may see the best of the young man from Charleville this season after last years injury disrupted campaign. Connor Pepper, Phillip Roberts, and Graeme Shinnie were also called up for international squads in midweek. On a lighter note, there has been talk on the Caley Thistle Online forum regarding the suitability of Terry Butcher to continue as the gaffer, a rather subtly entitled thread named Is butcher the man for the job (no comment, but we are not often seen in the same room). Well talk of this has now been overtaken by discussions about food and dairy products................Aye, it's been a slow news week right eenuff. Heres some quips to whet your appetite, all kicked off by Tichy_Blacks_Back who reckoned Terry was now doing the hospitality lunches as well, whereas LukeMackay reckoned he should be making piri piri chicken in Nando's which would help attract new players; that's why Hayes went to Aberdeen said RIG. There were of course some incredible revelations as Caley100 told us he ate a really hot pizza, and lost his sense of taste for a week whilst CaleyD prefers his mince and tatties from the Innes Bar, nom nom. Batchelors mushroom soup got a mention along with a bridge and a castle, as did Frankie and Benny's, KFC, TGI Friday, MacDonalds and Zizi's. Having raved about a Hungry Horse in Perth, ajsict is setting up tweet'n'eat parties after reading all this, while on another topic milk and dairy products came under scrutiny after a Staggy had the temerity to suggest that milk has been excluded from the players menu as it's too expensive. Spokesman Immortal Howden Ender was quick to dismiss this as a marketing ploy from a milk farm in Ross-Shire to re-assure the shocked Inverness fans. Apparently County fans were milking this on twitter said Capital Caley who also wanted to change their name to Ross Cownty, but Tichy_Blacks_Back preferred their udder name. A steering group was mooted by bughtmaster and that was the best idea herd yet as the comments flowed, but the normally optimistic Top Six Next Year urged caution as this could possibly turn sour. It's the Milky Way said tm4tj and the conversation moved to cows and goats, I kid you not, even strawberry milk shakes.....................who said supporting ICT was boring. Gringo has once again put pen to paper and after checking his old geography jotters here are his thoughts ahead of the game against the Dons ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Geography lesson for the SPL (Derby in Scotland?) I suppose every team has to have a local derby at some stage of the season and it appeared that our encounters with Aberdeen would be dubbed as such. Quite how a distance of 104 miles between the two clubs can be given such a title is beyond the realms of my intelligence! This season though we do have a real derby in prospect with ‘those up the road’ so the Dons game should become a normal game, I mean, Aberdeen isn’t even in the Highlands for goodness sake. (Is it?) This fixture has been subject, in the past, to re-arranged dates for the benefits of TV. Those end-to-end thrilling encounters must have had folk blocking the phone lines to Sky or ESPN to buy a subscription ......... I don’t think. For this fixture though we have a traditional Saturday date at 3:00pm which should attract a massive all-singing-all-dancing crowd (oh, hang on a minute…dancing? that’s not allowed) Over the years Aberdeen were fast becoming a bit of a bogey team for us as we never seemed to grab a win, home or away, in any competition. Our first encounter was a 3-0 home defeat in the League Cup back in 1998. In the SPL it took us fifteen attempts to record our first win and results have been mixed after that. Players from both clubs have made the journey to and from each other in search of success and/or first team football. Recently we lost Jonny Hayes to the Dons and we'll welcome him back to the TCS on Saturday...provided he has a poor game and leaves our benevolent defence alone that is. The Dons have players that can hurt us so, hopefully, Mr Butcher, along with Mr Malpas has been showing his defenders all of his International defending skills . There is no doubt that our style of football has changed drastically from that of last season. We have created more chances in front of goal during these first few SPL games but we still seem unable to find the net consistently. The result in Motherwell, whilst disappointing, wasn't as one sided as it sounded. Aberdeen have players that can hurt us and will do so if we are not on top of the defensive side of our game. The match isn't likely to be an end-to-end encounter and there will be goals, not many mind, but there will be goals. We have failed to keep a clean sheet in the SPL this season. To quote the Dons fans article in The Scotsman “There is a feeling that the team will finally click and, when they do, the opposition will be handed a heavy defeat. It’s hoped that this will happen sooner rather than later and it may be Inverness that suffer”. Well, having conceded eight goals in the last two SPL games it isn't difficult to see where he's coming from. Current form ICT:- As mentioned above, conceding eight goals in the last two SPL games doesn't make winning games very easy and when we have no prolific striker this just compounds the issue. In all fairness though, generally speaking, we haven't been playing too badly. Silly schoolboy errors at the back have cost us dearly. We sit joint top of the goalscoring chart and top by some margin of the goals against table. However, it's results that count on the day and with that in mind we are currently in relegation mode. Current form Aberdeen:- They only have one SPL win this season, which is one more than us. Despite the signing of ICT favourite Johnny Hayes, they too have failed to set the world alight. Their main worry is a lack of SPL goals and have only two to their name so far. At home they appear to be 0-0 specialists and the away form is only slightly better. They seem to be a better unit than last term though, proving difficult to break down which could be a worry for ICT. This fixture has been kinder to Aberdeen over the last six games, the Dons winning four against the two for Inverness. The highest scoring game was a seven goal thriller in 2008 when we had everything, two red cards, a late winner and a rare Roy McBain goal, a collectors item. Chris Maguire scored the winner in the fourth minute of injury time, something the Dons were getting adept at. The previous season Steve Lovell scored a late late leveller after Graham Bayne had opened the scoring, that was the last time these two clubs played out a draw at Inverness, eight games ago. 5,744 witnessed that game, I wonder how many still have the passion left for the game as the decline of Scottish football continues. Gringo's Prediction:– Another tough one to call. Dons can't score, we can't defend (or score enough). Does it have the makings of a 0-0 draw? No, I don't think so. Our defence concerns me and if they haven't been working on it in training then we could well be in for it. We aren't the tallest defence in the league so if Mr Hayes is allowed to get in his crosses (and shots) then we will be up against it. So, the key for me is, keep Hayes quiet and we may just do it...if not it could be any score. I think we can sneak this one with a nervy, nail biting, 2-1 victory. ***Latest Team News*** Inverness' Nick Ross is sporting a large scar after the operation to repair his damaged shoulder and will be in for a lengthy lay off. Good luck to him on his recovery. Chris Hogg is still out but is training now. Simon King remains an injury doubt for Caley Thistle ahead of Saturday’s home encounter against Aberdeen. Jason Oswell has recovered from his Achilles problem. Josh Meeking looks set to continue in defence should Simon King not recover from his ankle injury. Aberdeen boss Craig Brown has released Michael Paton despite some Dons fans having reservations over this, given that they have drawn blanks in their last three games. Broonie reckons that Paton was not going to be first choice as striker and this move will be in his best interests and will also realise the potential developement of other youngsters at the club like Cammy Smith, Ryan Fraser and Jordan Brown. Aberdeen have added an old new face to their backroom team in the shape of Jocky Scott. He joins other pensioners Brown and Knox as first team coach, mainly to develop the younger talents. The International break may have been enough time for Niall McGinn and Rory Fallon to recover from knocks, but Gary Naysmith and Rob Milsom are definitely out. Come on Caley Jags fans, let's get behind the team, remember, for better or for worse, that's what you signed on for. It's maybe not quite the US Open final but it's up to us to generate our own atmoshere and lift the gloom. Well done Andy.