RiG

At the game it was evident that someone had let Craig run free without properly tracking him. After Craig had scored both Vigurs and Tansey had a heated conversation about something, I would guess who should have been following him, so it was something I kept a look out for when I watched the highlights on YouTube. These confirmed my suspicions that at least one of the aforementioned two had been slack in their defensive covering contributing to the defensive mess that saw Saints open the scoring.

Eh? I can only assume that you can't make out who our players are. In the first photo, outlined, Tansey is at the bottom and Craig is tussling with Vigurs for the ball. In the second photo Craig has laid the ball off to Maclean and is now heading for the box, running across Vigurs who starts to track back with him but with no real effort. Tansey is to the right of Vigurs in this photo and about 5 yards from Craig. In the third photo Maclean has played in Craig now in acres of space in the box with Vigurs still trying to catch him. He hasn't 'nearly' gotten back in the slightest.

For an excellent example of the "Midfielders not working hard enough to provide protection" check out how little effort Vigurs puts in to follow his man for the Saint Johnstone opener today.

Even if there were subsidised buses people would still find an excuse not to go to a game. If we save any money from this give it to Richie to improve the squad.

Absolutely depressing stuff today. Struggling to think of any real positives at all. We were shocking at the back, had no real control in midfield and struggled to create much of note up front. Our sole tactic of lobbing it towards Doumbouya was easily handled by Anderson and Shaughnessy. With no Plan B Saints rarely looked troubled and ended up with a deserved win. First goal was really poor tracking of Liam Craig who burst into the box and was found by Maclean and the ball was quickly poked beyond Fon Williams. Second came from a free kick which wasn't cleared and Davidson turned the ball in whist the third came late on with our makeshift defence all at sea and Swanson danced inside what was left of it before finding the net. Sending off seemed justified. I can't remember the first yellow but it was a warranted second yellow and Warren had struggled for most of the game to deal with Swanson running right at him. Whilst our players seemed to take a touch of the ball to get it down and kill the forward movement Saint Johnstone continuously looked to attack and get forward. We had a lot of the ball but any time we got into the final third we couldn't break down the Saints defence and just passed the ball or ran across the edge of the penalty area before either shooting wide or passing the ball out for a throw in. It was similar to some of the toothless displays under Hughes last season. Five red cards in the last eight games in Perth. State of that. Referee was laughably bad.

Yeah just a wee bit of a difference! Maybe that's what folk were referring to.

So I had been swaying on whether or not to get the new home shirt for Christmas but having gone on the JD website it is no longer available. This must be one of the shortest windows we've ever had to get hold of the club strip

I seem to recall a lot of chat about the North / South stands having a life of ten years. Was there ever any truth in this or just idle rumours?

Elgin will be right up for this. Probably the biggest game in the history of Elgin. Not every day a former Scottish Cup winning side comes to town

Can we afford anyone? Foran said recently that the budget has been spent. Unless we move players on I would imagine any players coming in would be minimal.

Elgin away?!

Just pay at the gate usually.

Really disappointing result and performance. Foran is kidding himself if he thinks that was our best performance of the season though I suspect he is deflecting attention from the players. Whilst we did knock the ball about pretty well, especially in the first half, all to often our final ball was lacking or Dundee snuffed out any threat. The likes of King and Doran far to often failed to send in a really good cross for Doumbouya to attack and most of our efforts on goal were long range strikes that were always sent flying well over the bar and seldom troubled Bain. Good goal from Wighton to open the scoring driving right at Warren and slotting the ball beyond Fon Williams in the style of Thierry Henry. Dundee also had a penalty claim when Draper tangled with McGowan but it was difficult to see what happened from the other end of the ground. Just before half time there was a bit of a scramble in the Dundee box after a Tansey corner wasn't cleared and despite a number of sclaffed efforts towards goal no ICT player was able to turn it into the net. Second half was much of the same. ICT tended to dominate possession but Dundee created better chances. The second goal largely killed the game off. Free kick on the ICT left was whipped in by Hately, Doumbouya missed the ball and Gadzhalov powered the ball into the net. Whilst we did get a goal back when Tremarco somehow found the net after Bain appeared to cock up his attempted save bagging an equaliser probably wouldn't have been deserved. Dundee were much better than when we cuffed them earlier in the season whereas we seem to have gone backwards somewhat. Despite playing with 'proper' wide men in Doran and King we didn't really get much joy down the left or right flanks and Doran seemed to spend most of his time cutting in from the right and sitting inside leaving Draper to play on the right for large parts of the first half which seemed a bit odd. Vigurs went off injured which might go some way to explain his complete lack of effort when trying to defend Dundee attacks in the second half. Another injury is not really what we need with Polworth and Mackay out but hopefully the former is back soon especially with Raven out and Horner now suspended. We're starting to look a wee bit thin, low on confidence and pretty toothless up front. Some massive games coming up now against Saint Johnstone, Hamilton and Killie. I think we really need at least two wins from that lot. Going to be a tight old season this one.

Maddison has had his yellow card rescinded.

I haven't mate but given that Charlie Allan is a complete melt I have no doubts that it was complete garbage. No one was seriously booing Shinnie until that OTT tackle which he seemed to show little remorse for. That's when it got a bit real.

I wonder if some of the (half hearted) boos he got maybe got to him a wee bit? Certainly after that challenge they became a lot more meaningful!

I see Mrs Clancy has voted.

Having seen the BBC highlights Maddison definitely dived for the MacLean free kick but was probably unlucky to be booked in the second half.

Just one. http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/resources/documents/Disciplinary/CurrentSuspensions/Season2016/17/PlayerSuspensions/LOS18 (10 NOV 2016) VM.pdf

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.