IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER

I was going to ask if this was as bad a performance as Tynecastle but at least we salvaged a point. Richie quoted post-match - "I look at myself. Was my team-talk good enough. I'll go away and have a look at myself. I told the players they had an off day go and have a look at yourselves before you blame other people." I appreciate that fans playing at being managers are frowned on BUT the opinions on here about the starting selection and usage of players like Tansey and Polworth appear to be practically unified. I think that the second sentence from Richie should have read. Was my starting selection good enough.

Dear Egg Man, I presume that (at the time of my reply) as you have not been allocated any red dots so far that even the most blinded are in agreement with you. Shades of Tynecastle ?

I am with Robert on this one. I suspect he means 4-4-1-1 rather than 4-5-1. Mulraney and Doran deserve a start. Tansey and Polworth sitting and Draper in the hole.

I have been reliably informed that Dean McDonald has been stretched on a rack for the last few years and the outcome is Lonsana Doumbouya

Fraid it is Fisher for me. Bottom line is that I have seen Doumbouya 3 times and I have been totally unimpressed every time. But why is Richie adhering by him. He must be doing something right in training.

Well 4 points out of 9 is less than I was expecting. Can we get 9/9 from Killie, Well and Hearts ?

Ditto

I blame the merger

FON WILLIAMS 7/10 – No chance with the goal but look assured and kept us in it, although he did not really have that much to do. RAVEN 6/10 – Worried when I heard of his inclusion but he was more like the Raven of old. WARREN 6/10 – Worries me with his undisciplined impetuousness at times. Warriors do not put themselves at risk and do not take one for the team when there is cover. McKAY 5/10 – Lucky not to be dismissed. Went for balls that were never his. Clearly a better full back. TREMARCO 7/10 – Continues to be solid and consistent. Never given a chance of being an attacking option. POLWORTH 6/10 – I simply cannot believe that he is being played wide right. Drifted inside most of the night and was culpable at not giving Raven cover on quite a few occasions. TANSEY 5/10 – Scored him lower as he feckin annoys me. It was probably a 6 ½ out of 10 but why did he keep his best display of the season to the Showroom game. VIGURS 5/10 – Almost the same comment as Tansey. Appeared to make more effort tonight than he has done for weeks. KING 5/10 – Followed up from a disappointing game at Hamilton to another. Clearly right footed and not looking comfortable wide left. DRAPER 8/10 – My MOM for again filling in so many positions in one night – even taking over the main striker role in the second half. He showed his frustration by dropping too deep at times. DOUMBOUYA 3/10 – Thought that he was shocking even giving him a let off for the glaring 3rd minute miss. Simply does not appear to be Premiership quality. No real pace, won little in the air and allowed himself to be bullied. MULRANEY / DORAN 6/10 each – Have clearly staked the claims to start next game. FISHER 4/10 – Missed another chance at glory. My preference to start as he is more mobile, pacier and better in the air – What the feck more does he need !!

Shocking missed free header from 3 yards out in the 3rd minute by Doumbouya. Type of chances we need to bury

Not sure about that line up. Rangers appear to have pulled in Hill to match Doumbouya.

But they are a new diddy team from Glasgow with no history.

Who did a balanced review and report - trying to include some baiting banter with serious discourse. The majority of the blame for the "incidents" has to lie with the Hamilton youth and the non-existent actions of both the stewards and the police. We are not the only club to experience this nonsense and Hamilton could easily act to limit the chances of it not happening again. Allowing home troublemakers to march together amongst away family followers when they were clearly intent on causing problems is ridiculous. As there are only a few then they must all be readily recognisable to the club and the polis. It appears that some pointing of blame to some of our fans started all of this. All they did was exchange chants and taunts. They did not angrily react after the equaliser, they did not "ask" for our support to steam out of the stadium towards the rear of our end, they did not attack the opposition, they did not have a police presence and they did not attempt to bring out a reaction of supporters basically making their peaceful way to the train home.

Plans have been unveiled for a massive new business and retail park in Inverness – paving the way for the creation of more than 2,000 jobs. The old Longman landfill site has been earmarked for the development as one of five major projects put forward for cash from the £315million Inverness City-Region Deal. A 44-acre site at the former rubbish dump would be turned into almost 500,000sq ft of offices and shops – making it two-thirds bigger than the Inverness Shopping Park. Council chiefs said the scheme, next to the A9 Perth road, would create more than 2,000 new jobs over 10 years. They have produced a business case for an initial £10million for remedial work to bring land back into use at the landfill site, which closed in 2003 after 60 years. The proposal has now been lodged with the Scottish and UK governments as an application for the first injection of City-Region Deal cash, along with four other projects designed to “transform” the area. And the TCS - Does it stay or good ? Is this good or bad for us ?

You can all always talk to me if you are troubled.

Simply has to be given a run in central midfield. He is wasted out wide and often looks "lost" as well. Evidently playing out of his preferred position. Vigurs should be Tansey's back up. Leave Draper further forward.

That would be a truly great tribute. And then we thump them.

There would appear to be only one "child" on this thread. I can't EVER remember when I was last at a game when the opposing supports did not have a go at baiting each other. All the problems were started by the Hamilton support. There was absolutely NO stewarding whatsoever and very little policing. The urchins actually tried to noise up the older "crew" at the end but instead of an "ambush" walked / ran past us with inane comments. Our responses were merely sharp, concise and well meaning. I am going to change ma signature.

And we left our message on the wall over Hamilton West Railway Station

Anyway the REAL reason that the Hamilton Young Team shatt themselves in the alley leading to the Railway Station is because they encountered ICT Senior Citizens Squad, led by Donview and maself. It was like a throwback to the 70's when the Ferry and the Caley Animals combined.

Are they simply getting nervous at the thought of IHE watching from the stands ? It certainly was nowhere near as bad as Tynecastle, although Hearts may well have hit five against us and we were fortunate that their last touch was very poor and their shooting was rushed and mainly way off target. The statistics will suggest that this was a close affair but I feel that we did NOT deserve to take anything from this and that was a real “smash and grab” in injury time. But playing poor away from home, coming away with a point and stretching the unbeaten run to four games. Well you shouldn’t complain but I have enjoyed better games down the park on a Sunday morning. I wonder if other away teams lament the Hamilton experience. Due to the unfriendliness of local hostelries we enjoyed our pre-match bevvy in the Auctioneers in down down Glesga prior to catching the 14.20 train from Central Station. Then a wee trudge to through a shittty alley way and in to practically empty stadium. Attendance was given at 1611 but it did not even look like that. Only two stands in use. The Main Stand had three sections full and the rest sparsely populated. We must have had 200-300 but we were spread out all over the place an there was little atmosphere to enthuse about. The only craic was the exchanges between our Young Team and their Hamilton counterparts. I don’t think that I will have to use much space to report on the actually game. We looked the part for the first 10 minutes but it was tippy-tappy stuff. Then we faded and let Hamilton take control. It looked like a Warren error allowed D’Acol to put the Accies ahead in the 18th minute. Their young kids basically looked like they had more energy and commitment until we went for broke in the last 10 minutes and Accies also looked as if they had run out of steam and settled for a 1-0 win. It sounds as if that is the story of their season. Not sure why Foran decided to start Vigurs instead of Mulraney. He then took Mulraney on to play wide left whilst Hamiltons right flank looked as unsteady as one of the nearby slum tenements. Draper appeared to be in more of a centre forward role and it appeared that a lot of balls were being launched at him instead of Doumbouya. Again the match stats state that we had 7 attempts on target. Well we were looking dangerous only from dead ball situations. Mckay and Warren (twice) had half efforts in the first half. Draper had a great header saved by the substitute keeper – Scott Harrison – late on and then of course Polworths drive deep into injury time. I suppose that people will say that Foran got the substitutes right but I don’t. Our main savior was the amount of injury time which resulted from two stoppages for the keeper, time wasting by the Hamilton substitutions and Hamilton sitting back and us going fer broke. We could even have snatched three points if Doumbouya had put the last minute header on target. It was nice to see Dougie Imrie prostrate and distraught at the end. And I have to add that Hamilton’s youth Academy appears to continue to bring up talented yooungtser. I would love to know their recipe for success. Docherty looks a winner and He and Crawford bossed the midfield which turned the whole game in their favour. Imrie to be fair did look illustrious and effective. But I feel that we missed a trick by not targeting the young lad, at left back, making his first appearance. I also thought that Sarris dominated and bullied Doumbouya. Talking about bullying a wee mention for the so called Hamilton Youth Team. What a feckin firm. They joined us at the trudge back down the alley way to the Station. They spouted filth at families and disabled supporters. They passed by us and ignored our shouts of abuse. Some of them were 11 or 12 years old. They did not retaliate. They then grouped at the end of the alley in clear sight of the Polis and entered in to the dancing and come on gesturing. It looked more like Junior Strictly Come Dancing than Green Street. I can’t even be bothered doing a Smileymometer as I think that I have summed up the performance previously. Fon Williams did nothing wrong. McKay looked less reassured. Warren and Meeking looked shaky at times but probably not helped by Hamilton totally bossing the midfield. Tremarco continues to be consistent and gets my MOM. Cant believe that we continue to play Polworth wide right and he proved that by coming through the middle for the late goal. I only noticed Tansey for the first time when he went off injured. Same could be said of Vigurs !! King had an off day. Draper had to slot in to three different roles but he looks wholly suited to the front hole role. The surface did not appear to bother him and he looked like our real driving influence. Sorry but I am still not enthralled by Dounbouya. I felt that he let Sarris bully him. Get him down the Gym and on the weights and a wee bit of sprint training as well. But again what service and support did he get. I have already decried taking Mulraney on to the left and when we switched we began to look dangerous. Boden simply looked disinterested and added nothing. Cole is clearly “green” but got involved, appears to have a good touch and pace. Then I bet Doran is one cheesed off punter forced to watch that for 97 minutes. So in essence the first 93 minutes were shocking but the last 4 were promising. As fer Mr Cook – well we would have been better with Mary feckin Berry in the centre. He upheld the current reputation of Scottish officialdom. Post match Richie added – “I thought we had the better chances, their keeper pulled off one or two decent saves, we had one cleared off the line so on chances alone I think we deserved a point. On overall play, I thought they were the better team.” Not sure if he was at the same game.

On telly ?

C/o CaleyD