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PERFECT! Walsh becoming a goal machine? Both my sides win away Happy Christmas everybody!

I was in front of the person in the main stand who shouted abuse at Polly and prompted the reaction. He was on Polly's back all game, clearly missing the assist and his positive efforts. It really frustrates me. Polly is our best player but, as others have said, polarises opinion. We'd be much worse off without him: is that what some want? He is a local boy: will Mackay and others be getting similar treatment in 3 or 4 years? I really hope not! If we lose him in January, we can say goodbye to any play off hopes.

We've won 4 league games. 3 of them were with 1 up front. Your stats show that we are more likely to win against part-time teams from the leagues below.

probably because he lives here

I fully agree, he is the one decent player we have left and we should all be careful what we wish for

Robbo is closing in on his first signing after agreeing terms with a left sided player to replace Calder. The player won't play until January as he was contracted to an overseas club until after August. From today's P&J.

Some of our players come in for abuse and are overly criticised at times namely Polworth and the strikers. A different way to look at this we have three centre forwards who have some of the best conversion ratios in start/goals in the championship , Polworth does get assists and is a decent player, but so are the strikers their goals ratio to starts would back that up, but I think we would get more from Polworth and more goals if we played two up top together.One of the best games Polworth had was when we changed to 442 after being three goals down to Queens away and pulled back to draw in last twenty minutes of game.Polworth got the space in middle of park to drive forward as we played with width, stretched the game, and defenders had two forwards to contend with and space opened up. I personally think the formation is stifling Polworth with 3 in the middle and we would get so much more goal opportunities with having two forwards on from the start.In thinking all of this i looked at the stats of our strikers compared to their peers in the Championship and looked at our midfield to front players stats in their time with the club. In my mind 4231 is not getting us the wins we need , so surely when we have three of the best strikers in the league at least maybe the manager should try them as a pairing to get more goals. In all competitions this season White 13 starts 8 goals ratio of 1.62 only Shankland Dobbie and McKay have better ratios of top 25 goalscorers from Championship Austin 7 starts 4 goals ratio of 1.75 only Shankland Dobbie McKay and White have better ratios Oakley 10 starts 5 goals ratio of 2 only Shankland Dobbie McKay White and Trouten have better ratios If you take league games only Shankland Dobbie and Mckay have better ratios than both Oakley and White, thats why I get annoyed when the strikers are constantly criticised as these two guys are decent players. We play five midfielders every week out of six and only play one forward out of 3. Have a look at stats below which is all games started for the club and goals scored, maybe this is why we dont score enough goals, we are not giving enough starts to the players who will get the goals by only playing 1 forward every game. Actually we dont play Austin at all now and he has marginally the best ratio of all players. I understand the strikers should have the better ratios but to play five midfielders and only one striker is not helping our quest for goals. player starts goals ratio % chance of scoring AUSTIN 16 10 1.6 62% WHITE 13 8 1.62 61% OAKLEY 39 17 2.29 43% WALSH 21 7 3 33% DORAN 148 28 5.28 19% WELSH 16 3 5.33 19% POLWORTH 147 16 9.18 11% CHALMERS 63 5 12.6 8% Trafford has started 32 games and yet to score, Vigurs on the other hand in his last spell with us here started 106 games scoring 21 goals ratio of 5.04 which relates to 20% chance of scoring a goal when starting. I think its fair to say we miss him as he brings a bigger goal threat than all other midfielders apart from Tom Walsh. Some people dont like stats and say you can use them to prove anything, but surely they give a little insight as to why we may be hampering our chances of scoring the goals we need to win games Maybe this could be the time for the manager to at least try something different and give two lads out of three an opportunity to start some games together for the benefit of all 4 players including Polworth and the club .If we dont try we wont know if a partnership of Oakley and White would work ,Robbo hasnt tried these two as a starting pairing all season, maybe now is the time. Maybe we have the answer in front of us just by tweaking things and changing formation to 442

Good win : need to get a few more and then who knows? County in drivng seat so if we can win on Saturday the race is, in my opinion, wide open.

C mon guys the future is bringing through the youth and we are not far away from building a decent team at the moment. I feel that any signings now really have to be thought through. Anyone coming in now must be able to push us on. The rest of the season could hinge on the next few weeks.

Aye but winning at Greenock is considerably more difficult than the feckin Etihad

Great to get an away win sets us up for another next week ??

Today was a 4-4-1-1 with Polworth sitting jus behind Oakley. Neither scored ( Walsh & Doran did) , so how does that effect the stats !!!!! Needless to say.......,,delighted with the result !!!!!

Cheers ICT ??? !

This result deserves a pantomime tribute - where is my voddie ?

We are going up

0-2 great header from Doran !!!! Good to see him back on the score sheet !! ?

We miss far too many penalties these days. A bit more practice wouldn't go amiss.

Robbo in both spells has created a side which has focused on being hard to beat rather than free flowing attacking football. Strange considering he was an out and out goalscorer as a player but perhaps more a reflection on his personality/outlook.

Given that Christmas TV is full of repeats, just repost one from years ago and hope that nobody notices!

Currently at Derry. Would not be a bad signing in my opinion but, if at all possible, we still need to freshen up front.

Anyone know his phone number or his agent's number, he might be interested in making an investment, would be small change for him

Scotty has major surgery tomorrow. Please join me in wishing him all the very best - may his consultant/surgeon be totally successful and Scotty have a good outcome and thus enjoy a Happy Christmas followed by a healthy peaceful relaxing 2019. My love to you Scotty and to your nearest and dearest too. Liz S x

Should get out later today. Still got some tubes in which I will have to deal with at home until they come out in the next 10 days or so but feeling reasonably ok and ready for some home comforts.

We're all entitled to our own opinions which is the beauty of this forum and I'm not diminishing your thoughts however I seriously doubt our reputation as a club has been severely damaged and it's only embarrassing if you let it bother you too much. The club took appropriate action where needed and kept it internal, nothing more said and no need to embellish. Completely fine with me. In fact the whole incident doesn't even bother me that much, if anyone on here would like to come forward and claim to have never done anything stupid in their life then please form a queue beside that rest of us that have because I reckon it'll be non-existent. The media at their best taking an opportunistic approach to shame someone else in football, see it what it's for, a mistake and move on. If it was happening week in week out and on our own terraces then maybe take a different view but it's not so in my mind there's nothing to see here.

Fan shouts abuse at a game, such as the incidents with Polly - banned. Player does it, there's a tepid statement which takes days to appear, neither condemning the actions or providing a clear message of club position on the topic. The statement doesn't even address what the action taken was for - drunken behaviour, sectarian abuse or otherwise. This story made the national media and although the player took the content down from social media it is still on the internet via the press - right now the club looks like it has tried to sweep it under the carpet and ICT reputation in Scottish football to other fans is severely damaged. Its e,embarrassing.

I have been critical of lack of communication but it seems to me that, on this occasion, the club have said all that can reasonably said in public.

Our midfields not good enough to accomadate 2 up top they'd be overrun unless the lesser seen Beith is like Pirlo eh! Besides play all our strikers at once they'd still struggle to score just shows how stats can make eventhe worst of players i.e. White who wears lead boots look half decent!

4-4-2 has generally meant Polly being shunted out to the right from where he struggles to impose himself. It's all very well having him in a central 2 when we're chasing a 3 goal deficit, but if we did that every week teams would play through us. Playing two holders behind him frees Polworth up to make the the forward runs from which most of our goals are created. The system already plays to his strengths, it's just that the players around him aren't good enough.

and a large bag of apples.

He'll be able to buy Kew Gardens with his gardening leave money.

Wow, that must be nearly as much as RF got from us?

Good post. Interesting stats. The point about Polworth driving forward is an important one because all too often when he does try to drive forward, there is so little on in front of him. Not only is there not an obvious ball for him to play but opposition defenders can close him down without leaving someone they are marking, or even leaving any real space that other attackers can run into. We simply don't get enough players forward quickly enough to stretch the defence. We have a wide park and our game should seek to exploit the space that allows. Welsh, Chalmers and Trafford never get forward enough in my view and as a result we are always outnumbered up front except when we break quickly after corners etc. Playing 2 up front obviously leads to you being a bit more stretched at the back but it is hardly a novel concept and works well for many teams. As you say, our strikers do, in fact, have decent conversion rates and they would be scoring more if they saw more of the ball. White, like Polworth, has also come in for a fair bit of stick, but whilst there are some obvious weaknesses in his game, he is good at being in the right place at the right time, which is why he has scored as many as he has. Get more guys forward to open up a bit more space for Polworth's creativity and goals will come.

As long as they can afford the compo.

Hope they come knocking on our door for Robbo. ?

The article you speak of is here: https://nareystoepoker.blogspot.com/2018/12/in-defence-of-liam-polworth.html And you appear to have done your best to misrepresent it. Anyone reading this can tell that the link to Iniesta is quite obviously tongue-in-cheek. I was comparing how elsewhere skilful players are lauded for what they do, whereas in Polworth's case his good bits (his assist for Walsh's goal, his incredible assists record last season, even that nutmeg of Billy King by his own corner flag) rarely get any praise whereas every mistake he makes comes under the spotlight. And the 'neanderthal' description was not used as a reference to the MOTM award (though the people sitting around me were not booing the award because it was 'bizarre', because they were making abusive comments about Polworth at the time too). It was a reference at the end of the article to those who abused his family earlier in the year, who slag him off every week regardless of what he does, who are making him a scapegoat for the team's - and the club's - ongoing struggles. And there are too many of them at home games. Frankly, anyone who thinks that booing their own player will actually improve his performance is not very bright. As for 'just desserts', I'm not sure what that even means? Put Polworth in a team with a centre-forward who shows any intelligence whatsoever in his off-the-ball movement (we certainly don't have one in our squad currently) and watch him fly. I'm fed up of seeing him driving into the final third with the ball and looking for a killer pass to play, only for his teammates to be tightly marked and either making the same runs they have done all game or just not running at all. And when he is either tackled or tries to force a pass that isn't on it's him who gets the blame every time instead of his attackers.

Due to the possibility of being banned and upsetting a number of socially correct and humour bypassed individuals I will not be going ahead with the planned ICT Pantomime - SLO White and the Seven Vultures. So you will all have to use your imagination as to who were playing Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy and Grumpy.

Yaaaaas buzzing 3 points at last !

Don't be fooled by stats White is without a doubt a shocking striker he's not even a grafter or a target man maybe it's just me but I think he's 1 of the worst strikers wev had in recent seasons!

Who left Patrick jai quitongo no seen us linked with him tho tbf he's defo better than our current strikers should take a punt on him every1 needs a 2nd chance make it happen Robbo

Robbo knows our strikers are limited to say the least wev got the most immobile strike force iv ever seen tho might change if wee get Quitongo in the whole dynamic of the team would change he's pace to get in behind White would struggle to win a primary school sprint