Leaderboard

If you drop them an email or a voicemail they'll get back to you with the score within 4-6 weeks.

At both ends we were poor in front of goal. Disorganised in defence and wasteful in attack.

They'll be doing this because that is the way they've been told to play. The incentive is that if you don't do what the manager tells you to do then you'll get dropped. Presumably the manager is happy for them to focus on keeping possession rather than take a more positive, but more risky option.

Hopefully this poor performance will bring everybody back down to earth., There is no hiding this season and excuses for the next 4-6 games are going to lessen and lessen. The Diamonds has become, as Doddsie alluded to, a must win game. That should provide some answers to the spirit and the tactics. Keeping the faith at the mo. 👍

Looking at those highlights we should have had a bag full of goals. Poor defending for both goals.

Remember the days when the CM passed it in front of the full back for him to run on to. Haven’t seen that happen for years. Seems to be always slightly behind the man. Safety first every time. Not droning on about the good old days, sure everything’s technically better these days, but the entertainment value is zero, and the rise in admission prices is shocking, far beyond inflation.

Yes, I watch Dodds standing at the games while they pass it back and forth, and he doesn't shout at them to stop it, so they must be carrying out his orders, and when the ball goes to Harper, his first thought is to pass it backwards, instead of being proactive, he doesn't do it when he plays in midfield. Every other team his us hard and fast, while we seem to wait for our opposition to get back into their shape and then try and play through them, which in most cases, we can't.

I didn't see many games last season, but I saw so much of that on streaming broadcasts during the covid seasons. And again last night. I feel like suggesting that the club should introduce a fine for a player doing that when it was unnecessary. A few quid for every time someone does it. OK, it's impractical - imagine the arguments about whether it was necessary or not. But there must be some way of incentivising players not to go backwards. We are so good at playing the ball from the edge of the opponent's box all the back to Ridgers. If we could do that in the other direction we'd be world-beating!

Thanks RiG, estimations may be well out but it looked like we possibly had up to 200 fans there last night , which given the midweek kick off and nature of the match looked impressive. Looking forward to many more away trips this year and travelling back up the A9 with a win!

It's easy to say that it's early in the season, and we treat the league Cup games as pre-season games, but even if we played Dumbarton in a real pre-season game, we would expect to beat them, and would be worried if we didn't. If we play the same tactics as the last few seasons, same coaches, same tactics, I can see the same outcome, boring ponderous football, passing the ball back and forth along the back four, and players looking for the backward pass instead of turning with the ball and driving forward. It doesn't matter what players they bring in, it's the coaching and tactics that are predicable.

They have also won something like 6 games since January. Make no bones about it, League Cup Group Stage / friendly (call it what you will), last nights result was exceptionally poor.

We’ve entered this season, presumably for our Under 18s. We enter at the second round with a home game against Rothes: First Round draw: Brora Rangers v Fort William Wick Academy v Ross County Forres Mechanics v Strathspey Thistle Nairn County v Lossiemouth Ties to be played Wednesday 30th August 2023 Second Round draw: Brora/Fort v Clachnacuddin Wick/County v Golspie Sutherland Forres/Strath v Nairn/Lossie Inverness CT v Rothes Ties to be played Wednesday 13th September 2023 Semi-final draw: Wick/County/Golspie v Brora/Fort/Clach Inverness/Rothes v Forres/Strath/Nairn/Lossie Ties to be played Wednesday 18th October 2023 Final Due to be played Sat/Sun 11th/12th November 2023

Interesting discussion about our tactics. What’s been marked for me in the three games I’ve seen so far this season is that we have seldom gone long. We tried to play it over the top to turn the Elgin defence and capitalise on Samuels’ pace but we have not really done so since. Duffy played a long ball on Saturday and it led to Doran’s goal whilst Ridgers kicked out a couple of times last night (one went straight to the Dumbarton goalie without bouncing) but otherwise we have tried to play a passing game. I have no issue with that as long as we mix things up a lot so we are not predictable. However we normally play a safe pass which will rarely open a defence up. We have few players who are happy to take a player on. Shaw and Carson will, others less regularly although we have seen it from Doran and MacGregor in their game time. Maybe it has been deliberate as we get up to full fitness and sharpness but I’d like to see more variety in our play to keep our opponents guessing, whilst we need to know what our strengths are and play to them. As others have said, regardless of only being back in training for two weeks we should have comfortably won on Saturday and last night. Airdrie will be a much tougher test and if we fail it there are grounds for concern.

If you try Twitter you might get a more updated response if it needs to be club driven. I’m quite happy with LiveScore when not at the action though. I go on the club website about once a month and don’t really see it as needed for news.

Obviously depends on the ground, form, transport links etc. but normally there will be anywhere between around 100 fans up to a couple / few hundred. A lot of ICT fans will end up in the central belt after leaving the Highlands for jobs or tertiary education so for a game against the likes of Partick Thistle we might take a pretty good crowd along. I think there's definitely been an increase in our away support over the last few seasons. More of the Young Team head to away games now I think (possibly for the reasons above) which is good to see.

As someone new to attending away games, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of ICT fans at the match last night. Imagine it can vary widely but what is the typical travelling support to league matches? I imagine games in and around Glasgow area attract some 'away' fans now living there which can boost numbers. Last night's result was disappointing and hoping it doesn't scupper our chances of another cup run this year. Promotion to the Premier League has to be the focus for this year though so I hope we are still in the experimental period before we kick off for real on the 5th August against Queens Park...

Disaster. Our only hope to progress in the League Cup this year is that Dumbarton fielded an ineligible player.....

Same old by the sounds of it. Can't finish. Can't defend. These two cup games do not fill me with confidence for the season ahead. Early days of course. The next two cup matches may show some light on prospects.

That’s a really poor result, even if we are still in pre-season mode. Thanks Robert for the updates tonight - I was following from a theme park in Italy. What’s that phrase, a rollercoaster season?!

We leave our form player, Doran, on the bench???? And we play a certain way because the team is coached by the same coaching team year after year, so nothing changes. We are so predicable in the way we play, that most coaches can counteract our tactics now.

That’s the treble gone already.

Same as the last few seasons. No one with authority on the pitch. Lots of energy, but running around like headless chickens. As often as not, a forward pass goes to someone running back towards you, and he comes back 20 or 30 yards before passing the ball, sideways or further backwards. Opponents always seem to be smarter, better placed, make better interceptions, and above all, finish better. Sure we hit the bar and all that - but we weren't unlucky, it was poor finishing. Very depressing.

As it should, shouldn't be loosing to a league 2 side.

Full time. No positives that I can take from that other than Billy equalling the goal scoring record. We were second best virtually all game. I know we started pre-season later than most teams but we should still have been good enough to get a result tonight. Worrying.

We're all dire at it CT but it's great fun just trying to get 1 right! Go on, give it a go... 👍😀