RiG

Some absolute telt today from Aberdeen to Inverness. A really comfortable Dons performance and an easy three points heading back along the A96. Decent start from Aberdeen but we took the lead against the run of play when Draper lifted a cute ball into the box and Doumbouya appeared in acres of space to steer a header past Lewis to put us one up. After that it was pretty much all Aberdeen with any chances for ICT at a premium. Hayes turned in an absolutely stunning performance and a lot of the Aberdeen attacks were coming down the ICT right with Hayes linking up well with Shinnie and also Maddison who was always on offer when Aberdeen drove through the middle. After a Maddison free kick was easily repelled by the Inverness wall MacLean had better luck when he curled the ball low round the right edge of the wall and inside the post. A really good free kick and it brought Aberdeen deservedly level. The award of the free kick looked pretty suspect. Maddison seemed to go down very easily, a recurring theme over the course of the game sadly, but disappointing that we didn't defend the resultant strike a bit better. Minutes later Aberdeen were ahead. Hayes scampered into the box and Warren struggled to stay with him and Hayes went down as he collided with Warren. There was certainly contact between the two as Hayes clearly tripped over Warrens outstretched leg but, and this is coming with massive ICT bias, I did wonder if perhaps Warren had just planted his leg slightly ahead of Hayes which the winger then went down over. Regardless, I can probably see why Clancy gave it and again it was poor defending in the first place to let hayes break into the box like that. Rooney had no issues finding the net with the penalty. Sadly, given how little we had threatened since our opening goal even at 2 - 1 down I couldn't see a way back into the game for us. However Tremarco saw an effort go wide and Maclean nearly bagged his second when a shot that looked like it was already going wide was turned around the post by Fon Williams. Into the second half and it was much the same with the Dons dominating proceedings and ICT resorting to lumping long balls in the vague direction of Doumboya. Aberdeen almost went 3 - 1 up when a fine cross from the right found Considine in the box and his downward header was met by Fon Williams who somehow managed to scramble it away. Aberdeen then saw a great chance for Shinnie go begging as he sped down the left and was picked out with a fine pass from Maddison however the former ICT man shot straight at Fon Williams. Maddison then paid the price for some of his earlier antics when he went down in the box under a challenge by Meekings and was booked. It was difficult to tell from the other end of the pitch if this was justified or not but given his previous histrionics and because I'm a seething, bitter mess right now I'm inclined to say yes. Shortly after Maddison nearly made headlines for better reasons as a fine free kick cracked off the base of the post with Fon Williams well beaten. ICT then lost MacKay to injury after a bad challenge from Shinnie which inexplicably went unpunished from Clancy. Aberdeen eventually got their deserved third goal when they seized on ICT losing possession after a corner and Hayes broke rapidly towards goal and he teed up MacLean who drilled the ball past Fon Williams to seal the points. A really good counter attacking goal which triggered a mass exodus from the home support. We seldom had a chance to speak of in the second half. A header from Doumbouya had Lewis scrambling to turn it over the bar, Draper wriggled into the box but his shot wasn't powerful enough to get past Lewis and Tremarco poked a late effort goalwards without really causing any difficulty. If we had got a goal back it would have made the game look a lot closer than it really was. overall there can't be any complaints about the result and having read the comments from Foran it's good to see he's not trying to dress it up as anything other than what it was - a sound beating by a much better team. Clancy was an absolute omnishambles today with some really questionable calls. His decision not to at least give Shinnie a yellow card for his challenge on Mackay was bizarre as was his incredible call to allow Maddison to go down claiming he was injured, wave play on but then halt play as we got to the edge of the Aberdeen penalty area and allow Maddison to get treatment. But he wasn't the reason for our downfall today. There were plenty of errors from ICT that we should look to address before the next run of crucial games coming up against the likes of Dundee, Hamilton and Killie. Granted we were missing important players in Tansey and Polworth but our sole tactic of leathering it towards Doumbouya was easily being snuffed out by Considine and O'Connor yet we still persisted with it. Joe Lewis is enormous yet we played high balls into the six yard box most of the time we got our crosses in. as for our free kicks....Jesus wept. We really lack a striker who can play off the last defender and a midfielder with a real eye for a pass to play that hypothetical striker in. As it stands we are quite direct and rigidly stick to that direct style come what may. It might work well against some teams but it definitely wasn't working today and we didn't really have a clue what to do about it. In summary....

There's no question that Tansey hasn't hit the same peaks he once did after the sorry transfer saga with Aberdeen in January but I'm still a massive fan of the guy. He's still one of our best players even playing below par and the first name on the team sheet pretty much every week he is available. I feel he's almost become symbolic of ICT since his return such is his importance to the side. Sadly I think his departure is inevitable and whilst he may not have been at his brilliant best over the last few months I would still be very sad to see him go. Patchy form or not if he decided to stay with us even for another season I'd be delighted.

Says a lot about football these days when you include the cost of TV sports packages in calculating how much you will spend following your team. Nothing about number of home / away games you go to, cost of travel etc. Just the cost of a season ticket and how much you spend on Sky / BT

Equally there are a lot of former players and managers commenting that some of the figures are laughable. Almost all of them cited the numbers for Ro$$ Bounty.

Pretty meaningless without other information like total wage budget and number of players used per team. The obvious eye catcher is that we apparently pay our players more on average than RC. That might not be too much of a surprise I guess as I do wonder if our squad are relatively closely matched in wages whilst RC have big earners like Davies 'offset' by players like Dingwall? I've no idea obviously and few will do without this other missing information. Until then these figures should be taken with an enormous amount of salt.

http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/Sport/Football/Caley-Thistle-sweat-on-news-of-Liam-Polworths-injury-08112016.htm Apparently Polworth was having a scan on Monday / Tuesday so hopefully we'll hear soon what's going on.

Harry Gow likes this.

Any news on Polworth? Took a sore one on Saturday. Tansey will be suspended against his future employers which is a shame.

I fail to see how this is the 'right thing' TBH. The attempts by some people to try and get one up over another is pathetic. At the end of the day next weekend is Remembrance Sunday where people can, and ideally should, pay their respects. The weeks leading up to this day are becoming tedious and, ultimately, leading to some people to completely forget about the whole point of the day which is not petty point scoring.

We probably didn't have any poppies on the strips because it's not Remembrance Day until next weekend.

Stroll in the park for Celtic after they got the first. Thought we coped quite well for the first half and some of our defending in the box was excellent. Couple of half chances for Doumbouya and King (?) but we seldom threatened the Celtic goal. Cracking save from OFW to turn a wonderful Griffiths strike over the bar. In the second half we became a bit guilty of over playing things a bit and started giving the ball away with some slack passes which Celtic were quick to capitalise on. Vigurs (I think) lost the ball for the first and with a couple of quick passes Sinclair easily beat OFW. A few minutes later Tansey gave the ball away deep in the ICT half and tried to win it back, cleared out the Celtic player but the ball ended up with Griffiths who scored his 800th goal against ICT for Celtic. Tansey was shown a second yellow to make things even harder for us. Rogic bagged a third which I can't even remember as I am rapidly purging the game from my memory. The closest we came to a chance on goal was a free kick from Vigurs after Mulraney had been bundled over as he looked to break clear but I can barely remember us getting out of our half in the second 45. Polworth went off injured after a needless late tackle by one of the Celtic players. Might leave us very short for the game against Aberdeen in a couple of weeks. Mckay was probably our best player (again) and I thought Polworth did well until his injury. Tansey and Vigurs were both poor in terms of their passing with Tansey especially slack at times. All in all, disappointing result but we can't realistically expect to complete with Celtic when they can start players like Dembele, Griffiths, Roberts and Sinclair.

Quite an incredible game, loads of action, goals and questionable refereeing. Strong start from ICT with Doumbouya passing up a great chance to open the scoring when Tremarco chipped the ball in from the left but the resultant header hit the bar. Tremarco was injured putting the cross in and was replaced by Raven at left back who opened the scoring a few minutes later. Polworth chipped the ball into the box and found Draper who had stolen in behind the Hearts defence and he cushioned the ball down into the path of the inrushing Raven who steered an effort past Hamilton to put inverness one up. Hearts hadn't really done too much of note apart from lump long balls forward but they had started to press ICT back when they were hit on the counter attack. After a Hearts corner was cleared Vigurs linked quickly with Polworth to send Doumbouya into the box and he lifted the ball over the onrushing Hamilton to put Inverness firmly in control. But in the lead up to half time Hearts were very much on top in an attacking sense and grabbed a goal back when Johnsen was played in after a slip by Meekings and he nearly burst the net to bring Hearts back into the game just before the break. I'm not sure how much of a difference the slip by Meekings really made, I don't think he was going to cut it out, but Johnsen seemed to have a lot of space. There was an element of luck for the second Hearts goal which came just after the break. A deep cross from the left touchline from Rheras (?) evaded all the players in the box as well as the despairing Mackay and ended up in the next. Whilst it could be argued it was a bit of a lucky goal for Hearts I was disappointed by how easily we let the ball sail through with Meekings appearing to misjudge the flight of the ball before it bounced in. From there on Hearts really dominated possession and kept ICT hemmed in for long periods. Now it was Inverness who were resorting to long balls up the pitch to relieve the pressure on the defence and it was from one of these speculative balls forward that saw the third goal for the home side. Vigurs leathered the ball high and long in the general direction of Doran but he looked like he would be beaten to the ball by Cowie who should have easily mopped it up however he got into all sorts of bother and Doran won the ball before coolly slipping it under Hamilton to restore the lead. Again, Hearts upped the pressure and forced three corners in a row. Each time Inverness struggled to clear and it was after the third corner that Hearts grabbed another equaliser. A poor attempted clearance saw Hearts back on the attack and Cowie feed Djoum who somehow found the net with a low shot to restore parity. Disappointing to have conceded three goals at home. Defensively we didn't look great at points however we were obviously unsettled with the loss of Tremarco (and Fon Williams in the warm up) so all things considered we probably did quite well. Raven was solid at left back which was pleasing given it isn't his natural side. Doran had a good game before he came off and Polworth also performed well but was absolutely burst before the Hearts third goal and probably should have been subbed. MotM for ICT was probably Doumbouya. He missed a great chance early on but took his goal well and did a power of defensive work chasing and harrying Hearts players and had a good few tackles as well to win the ball back. Overall a cracking game which will probably be given about 2 minutes on Sportscene so they can talk about Rangers.

This is how I saw us lineup overall between the first and second halves. obviously it might be skewed given we were much more attacking in the second half and of course it's just my thoughts but certainly a few changes seemed to evident - 1) Polworth playing more centrally, 2) Draper dropping a wee bit from his more advanced position, 3) King playing much more as a wide man compared to Doran who seemed to be playing very narrow and 4) Mckay getting a lot of space down the right all to himself to attack.

With apologies for the double post, in case he doesn't post it on CTO, ICTChris has also gone into a wee bit of detail on the game on P & B. Worth checking out. http://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php?/topic/235058-motherwell-vs-inverness-caledonian-thistle-261016/&page=3#comment-10851273

Did not see that coming especially at half time. In the first half I thought we were pretty poor and struggled to really attack Motherwell. Whilst we largely looked okay at the back the better of the chances in the first half fell the way of the home side but they were mostly half chances which were wasted. Well's best chance came from a nice ball floated into the box which was laid off to Moult (I think) who hit the side netting. For Inverness we struggled to get a grip of the game and really create anything. Polworth was culpable of giving the ball away far too frequently in the first half and, along with Doran, the other wide man for us last night, often drifted infield leaving us with very little width going forward. A lot of our promising attacks were simply broken down by Well crowding out the midfield. Second half we were much better. Polworth seemed to move infield, Draper dropped slightly in front of Tansey and Vigurs seemed to have a free role roaming across the middle of the pitch. The opening goal came from a Brad "Hungry Wolf" Mckay cross from the right which Motherwell failed to clear and Tremarco popped up to poke the ball home via the crossbar from a couple of yards out. Doran came off for King who I felt gave us a bit more of what we needed on the left wing. Doran was frequently cutting infield but King, for once, tended to hug the touchline and drive for the goal line before getting a cross in. A Vigurs corner saw Doumbouya stab the ball in from close range following a corner which Motherwell again struggled to clear and he almost nabbed a second when King dug out a cross which Doumbouya sent goalwards but Samson scooped the ball wide. Polworth rounded things off with a fine shot from about 25 yards which beat Samson and crept inside the post to put a bit of gloss on the scoreline. Well could have had a goal back but it was disallowed for offside. I doubt we'll see a replay which offers any kind of evidence whether that was the correct decision or not. Overall a fine result with a much improved ICT performance in the second half. Tremarco and Mckay were probably our standouts. Polworth improved a lot after the break and Vigurs was pretty good without being overly spectacular. He did perform an outrageous turn to breeze past a Well player which I hope was caught by the cameras. King also did well after he came on. Shame he doesn't seem to perform over 90 minutes yet. Good confidence boost going into Saturdays match.

What's happened with Cole? He's shown small glimpses of potential but wasn't in the squad on Saturday. Was he injured?

I honestly don't think that postings on here in any way affect the attendance significantly. That said the crowd was very poor and our lowest for a league game against Killie taking place on a Saturday. We've had lower crowds but they were on a Sunday with a 12:30 (or thereabouts kick off) and a Wednesday night. Games against Killie used to draw around 4,000 fans to the games but, like other matches against the same sides every week, the interest has waned.

Out of the central midfielders playing on Saturday I'd say Vigurs had a better game than Tansey or Draper (and Polworth).

I was reading a couple of pieces on the excellent, albeit somewhat dry, TheInsideChannel website. http://theinsidechannel.com/a-guide-to-mauricio-pochettinos-tactics-at-totteham-hotspur/ http://theinsidechannel.com/guide-pressing-soccer-tactics/ Worth a wee read.

I see Nick Walsh has rated his own performance in the poll.

I think a draw over the piece was fair. Killie had some good chances in the first half to be out of sight. Coulibaly probably should have had a hat trick. After his penalty, following a clumsy challenge from McKay, he somehow managed to shot straight at OFW from only a few yards out and was then denied by a block by Josh Meekings balls. Tansey and Polworth had a couple of long range efforts but we really struggled to create anything of note in the first half. Second half we were slightly better as Killie sat in a lot more and looked to hit on the counter. They were really well organised defensively and we found it very hard to open them up. When Killie did threaten we often struggled to clear our lines and on at least two occasions when trying to pass it out from defence played the ball straight back to Kilmarnock. Mulraney was getting caught on the ball with the worst mistake coming when he gave away possession and the ball was crossed for Coulibaly who headed over. Doran and King came on and this gave us a bit more width but again they were deployed in a way that saw them continuously cutting in on their stronger foot and driving into the middle of the pitch where Killie were at their strongest and easily repelled the attacks simply just by crowding out the Inverness players. Doran scuffed one effort past the post and curled another shot over the bar whilst Doumbouya found a cross ball just out of his reach to direct a header goalwards. Fortunately Doumbouya was on hand to scramble home a truly terrible equaliser when a Tremarco cross from the left was headed back across goal, Killie couldn't clear and Doumbouya somehow squeezed the ball between MacDonald and a Killie defender. I'm still puzzled as to why Foran persists with Polworth playing on the right, or left as he did for a fair bit of yesterdays game. He showed against Dundee how tidy a player he is when played centrally and we have a number of players who can play in a more natural wide position now so why continue to force what seems to be a round peg into a square shaped hole. Mulraney started well but faded badly and was culpable for some very poor defensive play giving the ball away in dangerous situations which earned the rebuke of his team mates. Tansey again was below par but we don't really have many options to replace someone like him in the side. Vigurs was a bit better than recent games bit again was no better than okay. Still a real lack of quality up front as well. I'd like to see Fisher start midweek against Motherwell. Overall a point is better than nothing but I can't help but feel that we had something of a winning formula a couple of weeks back when we took Dundee apart and then for some reason we've changed that set up. I know you can't play the exact same way every week against different teams but there seemed to be little reason to change things. Particularly when it's the same issues every week that seem to give us problems.

OFW McKay (Mckay) Warren Meekings Tremarco Tansey Polworth Doran Draper Mulraney Fisher Obviously depends on injuries. Any word on Meekings?

Yup, you have to give credit to Rangers for the way they played. I don't like saying that but they did really well in the first half. We were bamboozled at points with their very neat and rapid interplay. Holt, McKay and Krancjar looked pretty good. Still think that we'll have a better time of things against Killie this weekend.

Earlier in the game Rangers were passing straight through us exploiting gaps in the midfield and between our defence and Tansey, Vigurs etc in the middle of the pitch. It made much more sense to sit off them a little bit more and try and plug the gaps in middle of the pitch that they were finding so easily and make it harder for them to play through us. If you start asking the players to press the opponents then that by default creates space for the opposition and Rangers looked very useful at exploiting that space on Friday. Fisher came on at a totally different point in the game where we had to go and take more risks and press much higher up the pitch. It did get some results but at times we also found ourselves susceptible to a Rangers counter attack as well. It would have been a very risky approach to adopt at a point of the game when Rangers were well on top.

Don't really get this desire that some fans have of the main forward chasing after the ball when it goes back to the keeper and across the back line. Given how easily Rangers were passing the ball by us and carving us apart in the first half having Doumbouya charge out of position to try and get near the ball would only expose those behind him. Far better to keep the shape of the side than run about like headless chickens. If Doumbouya goes thundering in then that leaves a lot of space in behind him (something which Rangers seemed quite good at exploiting) which would likely require another player to come out of position to cover. Fair enough when you are chasing the game towards the end of the match.