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Disappointing to lose a goal just before half time and then concede such a soft goal straight from our kick off at the start of the second half. Had we got to the hour mark without conceding we might have got something out of the game. That 2nd goal was a real sickener and full credit to the team for never giving up. We played very well against The Rangers on Friday but never quite matched that today. I don't think that was from any lack of effort, it was just that Celtic are head and shoulders above any other team in the league and put such pressure on the opposition. But having said that, if OFW had played like he did on Friday we would have run Celtic close. I thought Polworth was the one player whose performance was well down on Friday, when I thought he was excellent. How he got the sponsors MOTM beats me! Billy King was was my MOTM, particularly in the first half when he did some top class tackling back. King Billy put in a good shift but was frustrated by poor service from Polworth in particular and by a superb centre back pairing who never put a foot wrong all evening.. Overall, there was enough in that performance to suggest we can turn things round. The big worry is OFW's fitness. Richie may have a big decision to make there. He certainly has a big decision to make relating to Garry Warren. We now have decent options in defence and Warren has made one or two crucial errors and is lacking a bit of pace. Finally, a big well done to Iain Vigurs. Whatever one may think about Vigurs, I simply abhor fans booing their own player when he comes on. When he came on he really played for the shirt. He fought for the ball and then used the ball well when he got it. If he could keep that up for 90 minutes he would be first on the team sheet every week.

How many on this thread can honestly say they expected anything other than what happened last night ?What is adding to our woes are other results at this time not going in our favour .I know before I get blown out of the water we shouldn't be relying on other results but it is what it is . We all need to pull together and get behind Richie and his team ,starting against Partick a week on Sat that will be a crucial game ...CJT are running bus to this game so please book a seat and come along and show the team we are not ready to give up on them . Bus details on another thread . As for fans booing Vigurs it's a cheap form of bullying and these supposed fans should be filtered out (someone knows who they are )and given a ban we don't need that disgusting behaviour .IMO Vigurs is one of our strongest players . People seem forget it wasn't his choice to leave us in the first place Butcher in his madness got rid of him .I for one am glad to have him back in our team ..... I await the backlash ,and I don't mean on the pitch !!!

Second game in a row. Absolutely disgraceful. Picking out Vigz to be the brunt of everyone's frustrations...totally unfair. There's more players this season that have worse performances. RF has done the right thing, he's playing him off the bench-what more can be done? i can't believe at this point that we're booing any of our own players! Thought we were better than that.

Plenty of booing going on around me last night I made my feelings known, we should never boo our team or any of its players, I actually thought Vigurs played OK when he came on, showed some fight and a few good touches on the ball, to be fair to the lads, they were chasing shadows, Celtic are a class above anything in Scotland

Maybe, depends who is in goals.......

Not something new from Polworth. Every time he loses the ball he has a wee tantrum to himself. He needs to forget about it and work hard to get back into position. Not shake his head like a moody teenager. That said, on the ball he was ok last night. Just a game to quickly move on from. We won't have to play Celtic again this season so from here on in every game is winnable.

Great post DD. Was shocked at booing of Vigurs before he even came on. Esp as those booing had been giving team such great support

Polworth had good moments including that lovely volley and some forward runs but I was disappointed to see him make absolutely no effort to track back a few times when he lost possession in forward areas. He just seemed to spit the dummy/lose heart/give up way too easily.

The goalkeeping issue should have been addressed in the January window. If OFW has been carrying an injury as speculated and Ryan Esson's fitness is suspect then why sign another striker in Henry Anier a squad player at best???

Don't see any point slagging the players off for this evening. Domestically Celtic have been literally unbeatable this season. They're a class above the SPL. Also don't agree with this notion that the players lacked 'belief', or should've been braver with the ball. Celtic are bigger, faster, stronger, more skillful and more organized than us. Trying to dribble or play tippy tappy against a team like that is suicide. 9 times out of 10 you'll be dispossessed (as we saw time and again tonight) and the team left exposed for a breakaway. No amount of 'belief' will magically change reality. Under these circumstances it's safety first - clear your lines, play long, safe balls up the park, don't take any chances, keep men behind the ball. This is how we played in the first half, and for the most part it worked well. Celtic struggled to break us down and it took a world class goal to break the deadlock. Second half was a bit of a shambles, but Celtic can make anyone in this league look like mugs. Having 2 energy sapping OF games in 5 days probably didn't help the cause. 4 points gained from Hearts, Rangers and Celtic is an excellent return. The bar has been set. If we can perform to the same standard against the diddy teams we'll climb the table.

What about Ryan Stevenson on loan from Raith ?

Mckay - McNaughton - Meekings - Tremarco

Relegation, is the nightmare scenario. Dundee Utd have reported operating losses of over 1.5 million yesterday and that does not include the 1 million they took in through transfer fees. Appreciate their wage bill is a lot more than ours, but absolutely no way can we contemplate relegation. The home support last night was well down on previous matches against Celtic, dread to think how many we would pull in against Ayr Utd on a Wednesday night in Feb/March.

Try asking the people who lost their jobs last time, or those that had to sack them in the first place that this is "for the best". Relegation cost us something in the region of £1m and whilst prize money and parachute payments have been adjusted now so the hit might not be quite as big, anything other than shooting for 10th spot or better is utter madness in my book. For us it is all about seeing a good team on the park and the idea of rebuilding might work in theory ... but theories dont buy food or pay the mortgage ! These players should be scrapping for every point and trying to ensure their colleagues have some job security come the end of the season. The players can walk away at the end of their contracts, its not so easy for ancillary staff !! As for last nights game ... I was reasonably happy at half-time. We played well for 40 minutes and lost out to a very good strike from Sinclair. That first half team were more than holding their own against a side that had previously trampled over all opposition they have faced this season. The second half was surreal, especially the start of it. Quite apart from the blunder by OFW, why are we passing all the way back to OFW on our own kick-off in the first place??? That was idiotic. The ball did seem to take a slight bobble but it was a terrible sclaff from OFW. Our heads went down after that and Celtic just rounded out the game very easily. On the live stream from ICT it looked like King, Cole and Polworth had decent outings. Didnt notice Polly not tracking back but the TV perhaps didnt give the full picture. Thought Brad Mckay was also decent but we are very slow now and lacking in confidence. The booing of Vigurs didnt come through on the feed but not sure what thats about ? He may not be everyone's favourite player (because of the County association perhaps?) but he was far from the biggest culprit for last night's result. In the end we got what we expected from this game (nothing) so its time to move on and focus on the other games. We got 4 more points than most expected from Hearts and Rangers and with 6 to go before the split they are all winnable. Aberdeen looks the toughest, but Hamilton showed it can be done.

Any fans caught booing should be made to take a walk of shame around the pitch at half time of the next game and made to write Together We Believe, Together We Achieve a thousand times on a blackboard IMHO.

Agree to a point. I think Vigurs is an easy target. For me Polworth can be as lazy at times. As much as I don't agree with booing our own players, but banning people who do? Slightly over the top.

Can't agree with that. While there is still a glimmer of a chance of achieving 10th spot, all the efforts should be concentrated on that aim (manager, players and supporters alike). Relegation I fear will definitely be a financial disaster leading to the loss of many jobs, and as I don't think we have the ability to bounce back up, I can see the possibility of us slipping into relative obscurity, part time football etc. So, one more giant push is needed from everybody to gain us another year in the top flight, and buy us a bit of time to sort ourselves out next season.

Oops, at least we might get a 0-0 if we turn up this Saturday.

First 43 minutes we went toe to toe with a better team and didn't look like a result was beyond us for the 1st 1/2 hour of that. Lost one goal to a great individual strike, lost another and all our confidence to a classic defensive clusterduck, and then went to pieces. I've seen a lot worse, tbh. The only thing I'm glum about is results elsewhere which have piled on more of the sticky stuff. It's snorkel time.

Much as I have criticised Hughes in the past we could have done with Hughes tonight. He'd have put Draper in goals.

That must've felt like a training session for Celtic. We didn't get near them all night. Looked to me that we were terrified of them from the start, I've never seen us stand off a team like we did tonight. And you simply can't give a team like Celtic all the time in the world to play it out from the back. Even without the howlers I suspect the scoreline would've ended up the same at the end. I left after the 4th, I'd seen enough...and it was feckin freezing to add to my misery.

McKay off fer Anier. We could bring on Ibramovich and it would not make a Feckin difference.

How odd indeed that in a thread titled 'Our Former Managers' there should be a discussion about our most recent former manager.

Cannot disagree that we have issues all over the park, but we are talking here about a goalkeeping crisis. Individual goalkeeping errors are costing us and I can only imagine the negative impact it must have on the other 10 outfield players. Confidence is low and costly errors need to be cut out. Have every sympathy with OFW if he his being asked to play when not 100% fit,but it is not doing his GK reputation much good. Will be interesting to see if Chris Coleman includes him in his next squad. If we are to rescue what is left of this season RF needs to find a solution pretty quickly,

Ostracising, leaving out players whatever you want to call it is part and parcel of the game, probably find Alex Fisher & Scott Boden not to chuffed with RF man-management style at the moment.

So where does this leave your earlier statement that if Caley Thistle didn't get 3 points from their next three games (Hearts + OF) then relegation was certain? After the Rangers game saw that target overtaken, I asked you "That's now four points from the first two of them, so does the converse apply? Does this now mean equally definite safety?"... to which you replied "Are you fick or wot ? Of course it is the converse and sets us up fer Cellic." But now you appear to have abandoned that converse, changed your mind again and once more consider the team to be in "BIG trouble". Confused, Inverness.

You really are such an ersehole If we didn't get that 4 (FOUR) points we would be relegation betting certs. Of course it was the converse - it was season saving and it meant that we had confidence going in to the Cellic game and any type of result would be a huge, huge bonus. I have to concede that I was baffled by your grammar in the second question and chose NOT to respond. Given the other results recently and the fixtures coming up we are in BIG trouble - are you fick or wot ?