RiG

Polworth Ross County fans The woman at the bottom right clapping

Great to see Hughes abandon his non threatening negative tippy tappy philosophy and go right for the jugular again against County. There's nothing wrong with being direct and playing long balls so long as there is some kind of aim in mind when they are played (not like the garbage hoofball under Brewster). I'm not a fan of Meekings at RB but I was pleased to see how often both he and Tremarco on the left were getting forward offering great support down the flanks and giving us a wee bit more width when the centre of the pitch got clogged up. Devine and Warren were solid at the back. I'm still not a fan of Devine but credit where it is due, I felt our defence handled the County attack with ease save for the couple of chances in the first few minutes and when Irvine broke through and should have scored. Tansey and Vigurs stamped their authority on the midfield, Vigurs maybe a little bit too much if you believe the County fans. Apparently he had a shocking challenge on Irvine but from where I was I couldn't see it and it's not been included with any of the highlights. Draper and Polworth were superb at getting forward to support (Liam) Hughes and Storey who caused the County defence all sorts of problems. Incredible to think that Polworth was a bit of a 'meh' player for us until this season. Aside from a wee drop off in form over Dec / Jan I think he's been a revelation this year. There's some great photos of him celebrating his goal in front of some utterly seething Ross County fans Despite what a couple of folk have said I thought Liam Hughes did fine. He was a real nuisance up front and won a lot of the high balls up to him and with excellent support from Storey buzzing around him and the likes of Draper and Polworth charging on from midfield he was getting the support he so sadly lacked at Saint Johnstone. He's a bit of an awkward player no doubt but he's been so isolated recently and it was good to see him get a bit of help from his team mates. The goals were all very well taken. Wonderful counter attack for the first, bit of route one for the second but again a nice finish (with another quality celebration) and as for Storeys strike - what can you say? We don't get handballs given against us so I don't know why the County players even bothered trying to claim for it. A cracking strike. Hopefully Hughes maintains this style of play. Folk slagged off Butcher for his long ball approach but I really don't think it was as bad as that. Sure it was direct but we created so many attacking chances from it and it's clearly a strength for us and we saw that on Saturday. We don't have the players to play the tiki taka stuff that Yogi likes so why force it on the team when they aren't capable of it? Play to our strengths and win more games. I know what I'd rather have and it's those kind of 3 - 0 wins every week going direct rather than toothless attacking displays characterised with boring sideways passing. It's a no brainer.

Not having a go at you but I think it's absolutely ridiculous that fans are not permitted to take photographs of games involving their side.

Further proof that stewards are idiots.

I'm not there so I can't be certain but someone said Devine was at fault for both goals?

Totally guessing here but: OFW Meekings Warren Devine Tremarco Vigurs Wedderburn Horner Draper Foran Hughes

According to Hibs.net they are. There's certainly Hibs SC buses heading up anyway. Wouldn't be surprised to see a few hundred Hibs fans up the road.

Same prices as the original tie so it's £20 for adults and £10 for concessions. U16s get in for £5.

When you think about it you could apply that to pretty much every one of our managers over the years!

Scott Burns says that we are trying to offer Tansey a new deal. Will be interesting to see what happens here. If he rejects it I suspect a move to Aberdeen will be on the cards. On the plus side it's good to see us making a move to tie down a player (oo er) who still has a wee bit to run on his current deal.

Tansey is suspended. Stick Polworth or Vigurs in there instead of Tansey and that's probably about as good as we can get I think.

Calderwood is an oaf and a bully. He hounded young Ryan O'Leary out of Aberdeen and Kilmarnock calling him 'soft' when he was battling depressing and rinsed him in front of the entire Aberdeen team saying they should stay away from him. If he (Calderwood) ever came to ICT I would not go to a game until he left the club.

0.3?

Hibs win on penalties, get smashed celebrating and forget about the replay on Wednesday. County are ruined and can't raise themselves against ICT next weekend and are crushed 4 - 0 in Dingwall. Oh, and a few injuries suspensions (if that's even possible) as well please.

I hope the Hibs pump them after extra time and possibly penalties. Any County victory will largely be detrimental to us.

One shot on target?

That was me. Whilst I somewhat agree with the comment regarding relegation being a real threat I wouldn't say we have no chance against Hibs who have been absolutely gang recently.

I never understand posts like this. Look at our form over the last 8 or so games. We are not on a good run and are not playing well and creating little of note in these matches to excite the fans. Despite this, I don't think anyone has said they are not behind the team or not supporting them despite this sticky patch (EDIT: Apart from Mahonio and he doesn't count anyway). Posters on here are simply voicing their concerns about these recent performances but they're still supporting the side.

Fon Williams Horner (assuming Raven isn't fit) Devine Draper Williams Tansey Vigurs Polworth Storey (assuming he's recovered from the flu) Roberts Hughes

Handy that Chris has posted on here because now I can just copy and paste my P & B post Great post from Chris as per usual. We didn't manage a single shot on target last night against a team that has won twice since the start of December and who absolutely dominated us for the majority of the game. Roberts had a couple of good half chances either side of half time. The first seemed to be a missed clearance by a Saints defender and Roberts took an age to control the ball and have a shot and when he did get an effort away it didn't even trouble Mannus. The other effort came as Vigurs pounced on a poor back pass from Anderson and cleverly back heeled it for Roberts who dragged his shot wide, possibly via a deflection. Saints however had numerous chances to score but it wasn't until the 84th minute the finally went ahead. With that goal from Kane 50% of the goals ICT have conceded have been in the last 15 minutes of a game. 50%. That's ridiculous. No complaints about the earlier penalty decision. Looked a desperate lunge from Warren at the time and having seen the highlights I can't see any reason not to have awarded the penalty and give him a second yellow. Cracking save from OFW though. With some of the saves he has been making recently you'd have to imagine he will be our number one keeper next season. Chris is right when he says that conceding late is largely down to our style of play. By sitting so deep we encourage the opposition to put pressure on us and we frequently make mistakes. Twice last night Tansey played dangerous balls across the back line and was intercepted. The number of last ditch 'heroic' style challenges we need to make is concerning. Tremarco alone made three such challenges last night and Warren and Devine also chipped in with a couple of desperate blocks. It's mind boggling why we choose to invite so much pressure on ourselves and end up making costly errors. Having games in hand is all well and good but not if you are losing the games and seldom creating anything resembling a chance during those games. As Chris has said we created nothing of note against Hearts, a couple of chances against Hibs and another couple tonight. A handful of (half) chances over three games is desperate stuff. The emphasis on possession is all well and good but you need to actually try and create something with the ball which is something we don't seem to do. According to the BBC both sides last night had roughly an equal share of the ball. The shots on and off target tell you which team was actually trying to create something when they had the ball. I know folk will say that we've got players out but the guys that are in the team now haven't just been plucked off the street. The majority of them have played most of the season for us so far so I don't injuries can be used as that much of an excuse. Our style of play is horrible. It's boring to watch. It's negative, slow and timid. We play with absolutely no width in the team. Polworth was free at least 3 or 4 times last night down the right and every time he was overlooked for a short pass back to either the defence or goal keeper. On the rare occasions we did get the ball wide the final delivery into the box was well below par. Williams would routinely scuff his crosses or not even beat the first man. As Chris rightly points out if you are going to play with a target man up front you need to offer him some support. Have midfielders running on to his knock downs and, given the formation we played last night, use your full backs to offer some width to cross it into the box for your target man. I don't think we did that once last night. Fair play to the Fair City Unity squad (:laugh:) last night. Never stopped signing all through the game. But what were Saint Johnstone playing at watering the pitch before the game? Were they trying to turn it into a bog?

Sobering stat in the BBC 'preview'. We are 20 points worse off at this stage of the season compared to the same point in the 14/15 campaign.

Cheers. In that case drop Storey and play Tremarco up front.

Saint Johnstone have won just twice since the start of December and still find themselves in the top six. Incredible stuff. I wonder if we can keep our first clean sheet of the season away from home (league games obviously). I think I read somewhere that Tremarco is suspended? Hope we abandon the three at the back and would expect that, given injuries, suspensions etc. we will go with something like: Fon Williams Horner Warren Devine Williams Tansey Draper Vigurs Polworth Roberts Storey I've almost certainly forgotten someone really obvious who should be playing. EDIT: Polworth! That's who I forgot.