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With all due respect, you have no idea how positive I am as a fan and how much I have been singing the teams praises of late. I have been to enough pre season games to see how the team have changed and played and confidently seen this fixture as either being a comfortable win, or a well fought loss.... But I seen neither! I am very optimistic of the season ahead and of Richie and the team, but that performance against partick simply wasnt good enough. If we'd played out of our skins and been beaten I'd have happily conceded that loss, but it was poor given how well I know we can do and how well we've done. Yes it's early days yet, of course it is.... But we cannot allow ourselves to pick and choose the games we perform well in, as before we know it's games like this that could be the difference between top and bottom 6 later in the season. I know we can do better, it's simply the frustration of knowing full well that the team are better than that. I will still be there in Alloa on Tues and taking pride of place against County on Sat.... But I want to see more conviction and the heart I KNOW my team are more than capable of showing

As has been said before, defo a bit of a reality check. Was clear we had most of the possession, but our flair players were stifled and none of the 'big names' had a great game, very much like our previous 'toughest-so-far' opponents-Dutd. Polly had a shocker, and let it play on him, as the game went on he was less inclined to chase down the ball after he gave it away. Tansy was playing deeper and deeper as the game went on, and although his vision and intent was spot-on, his final ball was far from clinical. McNaughton reads the game so well, is always in the right place at the right time, and is so calm under pressure; just a shame his distribution is a bit harem-skarem. if he can work on this, and have others in the defence drop back to take the ball from him once he invariably wins it, that will help. Stand-out moment in the first half for me was Mulraney giving the ball away at the edge of their box and tracking back, at fair pelt, all the way to the edge of our box to win the ball back in a strong challenge. I liked the desire to atone for his mistake. Was encouraging that our possession came from good quality, forward minded (on the whole) passing football. It was definitely frustrating as the second half wore on that we clearly were running out of ideas and therfore couldn't keep the pace up and the attacks stalled, allowing Partick to regain their shape. Also encouraging to see Richie go 'all-out' and throw on the extra forward, he cant be accused of throwing in the towel. **EDIT** Loved Drapes 'impact' when he came off the bench All-in all, not a great result, but my opinion of this league campaign has changed so many times already, i'm not going to lose much sleep over it. I think a 9th/10th place finish is possible, but i also think a 3rd/4th is possible! and i dont foresee a massive points gap between the two come the end of the season. We all knew it was going to be tough. What will help is a strong, convincing win over the wee team next Saturday. Drapes starts in place of Mulraney, Fisher and Boden both start up top, drop Polly in favour of the more physical Vigurs...with the pace of Mulraney coming off the bench... COME ON THE CALEY JAGS!!!!!

They had their pitch relaid over Summer and is now the same as Falkirk have.. Still not grass but apparently much better than before. I know we won't because nobody does anymore but I'd really like us to play two up front on Tuesday. Boden was completely exposed whenever the ball came into him on Saturday and when Fisher came on he had a few decent flick ons. OFW Raven McNaughton Warren Tremarco Mulraney Draper Tansey King Boden Fisher Subs: McKay, Brown, Horner, Vigurs, Polworth, Doran, Sutherland,

Fon Williams Raven Mcnaughton Warren Tremarco Draper Tansey Doran Vigurs King Fisher Would like to see fisher get a chance he played alot of games with under 20s be good to give him a start see what he can do

Just one point off top 6. We can still do it. Believe.

Funny how we all see the game a bit differently. I actually thought Polworth was among our better players, at least in terms of showing a bit of fight getting forward. I agree that he's not a deep-lying midfielder - I'd have Draper in there ahead of him every time - but personally I'd like to see the less-industrious Vigurs dropping to the bench and Polworth playing in behind Boden, unless Foran thinks that Aaron Doran could do that job. Not sure that Boden and Fisher would work together up front - I think there would be serious lack of mobility and movement up there, but could be wrong.

Surprised Naelifts hasn't been on yet as I could sense his frustration at the game anyway, I think it's too easy for some folk to see things in black and white especially if they only see the team once in a blue moon. I think Archibald showed up Richie's inexperience yesterday. I think Richie was expected to go all gung-ho so Partick just sat in as if they were the away team. In particular they doubled up on Mulraney so he never had any space to run into. Partick just let us play in front of them until we ran out of ideas and started to look like one of yogi's teams. Partick themselves have very little to offer on the break but it wasn't a break that led to their opening goal. Just Vigurs being too lazy to get in a proper challenge, and one decent bit of quality after 36 minutes turned the match. First half according to Bbc stats we had about 63% of the ball. The stats overall are favourable to us, apart from the one that matters. second half was a painful watch. Apart from an early flurry it became clear that we were never going to score and soon we conceded an absolute howler of a second. wer are not a bad team. Players like King and Mulraney are not bad players, although King tends to dribble himself into trouble and Mulraney may not have the quality to deliver the ball when he gets more space against the better teams like Celtic who will give us more room. I have been impressed with McNaughton but yesterday not so much. I still feel we'll do better than Partick once the season gets going. I'd like to see a striker coming in though...

I expect the main reason is we can't afford to tour these days and would be dependent on the bigger sides coming to us which they don't seem to want to do. I've always said that pre season is about trying things out and getting fit. We've a new manager with new ideas and some new players to gel into the side. It didn't work for against Partick yesterday but when we go there in the League it never does. They're a bit of a bogey side. Its going to take time but I think we have the makings of quite a good side and if we can steer clear of injuries / suspensions etc we may do quite well.

Think today was a reality check. Yes we have played some good stuff in the cup but it was against lower league teams. For the County game Draper must start the game for him to boss the midfield as he always does against County.

Perhaps that was because all our previous games were against lower league sides.

Sat 06 Aug 2016 Eng Championship M Watkins (Ipswich 4 - Barnsley 2) National League L Hughes (Barrow 1 - Aldershot 0) Scot League 1 C Ferguson (East Fife 2 - Albion R 2) Highland League D Gillespie (Brora R 3 - Forres 0) A MacLeod (Strathspey T 2 - Buckie T 9) D Wyness (2) (Huntly 2 - Rothes 1)

FFS, one game into the season and this is posted. Unbelievable.

What does this have to do with Partick v ICTFC?