Renegade

I noticed that as well! Particularly the pronunciation of "Butcher"! Shows how little folk in the central belt/down south know about the Highlands though, when they think two Black Isle deer would talk with such a Glaswegian sounding twang! Does anyone else notice also, that the father and son seem to switch/change colour at one point as well?!

The fact of the matter is, Ross County have what must be the narrowest pitch in Scotland. Playing with two out and out wingers, is totally pointless. Players like Greenhalgh, Doran etc. need space to run into and they won't get much of that on Friday. From what I gather, if there's two things don't handle well this season, it's height and pace up-front. For this reason, I'd scrap the 4-2-3-1 for this game and go with an out and out 4-3-3. The three in the middle should be good enough to deal with what County have out there. With this in mind, I'd go with this - Brill Raven Warren Meekings Shinnie Draper Ross Foran Doran Agdestein Mckay Subs - Esson, Devine, Tremarco, Greenhalgh, Watkins, Williams, Polworth Get Agdestein there up against Boyd with Doran and Mckay either side. Having three out-and out strikers on the field as well means constant pressure on the County backline and would mean that Kocavevic wouldn't be able to make his regular runs forward (a key attacking threat they pose) and if he does means that space would open up the could be exploited, which Doran could use to his advantage. None of this stand-off nonsense, get in their faces, take the game to them and put them under pressure. That's how to beat this Dingwall mob.

That's what he did against St Johnstone. He was like a headless chicken that day and seems to be more suited to a more defensive role. Personally, I thought Greenhalgh was okay, but Watkins is better for now. Wonder Greenhalgh would be better as more of an impact type of player to bring on in the second half.

Putting the appalling performance by the officials today aside for a moment, IMO there's a few things we could learn from Partick today. Slickness in Attack - When Partick went forward there seemed to options all over the pace and they attacked with a driving pace, as well as getting the full-backs (particularly O'Donnell) into dangerous positions. We seemed to keen to attempt to pass the ball into the net, especially in the first half. Pressuring the man in possession - We seemed too keen to try and intercept the ball, while they were very good at getting into our faces. We need to stop being so nicey nicey and play dirty once in a while. Possession - We seemed fine with the ball at the back, but seemed quite keen to launch it long for Mckay to chase. They seemed able to keep the ball on the deck throughout and attacking with it. We should be doing that too.

2209 is the first train back after FT. There's another one at 2255.

Callum Reidford - Ex-Rangers, Dunfermline and Dundee keeper, who came in on trial prior to the start of our season in Division 1 as a potential back-up to Esson. In the end he wasn't signed, despite playing a couple of friendly matches. Afterwards, he went to Clyde and then Stirling and is now at Stenhousemuir. Also, does anyone remember two Slovakians (or possibly Slovenians!) who came in on trial around the same time? I'm sure one of them or possibly both of them were strikers and one of them scored against Deveronvale or somewhere. Think he was called Oli or Ogi or something?

One or maybe both of those two Nigerians were released I believe, one was also a con man or something as well apparently.

"Spectators always see more of the game" - Stephen Fry Foran can come out with anything he likes, doesn't mean he's right.

As I said on the matchday thread, Polworth was a headless chicken and should have been hooked in the first half. Nick Ross has also been poor on the wing for weeks and if he's going to be played anywhere, it's down the middle.

ICT winning something every time for me. I think the thing is though, the Scottish Cup isn't really that big an event in the sense that it isn't unwinnable and we've not been far off in the past, unlike all the competitions Scotland ever have competed in (apart from the Kirin Cup and other novelty events). If it were the Premiership or some kind of European competition we were talking about, I'd presume the consensus would be a bit more equally balanced.

Shame if true, I've been hearing he's looking way past it this season and I was looking forward to Mckay giving him the runaround in a couple of weeks!

Josh Meekings to rifle them in David Luiz style!

Remember a few years ago, Man United signed some Australian boy of about the same age? Never heard of him again so far.

I see Michael Fraser's in goal. That makes me about 100 times more confident of victory!

Means that while Meekings-Warren-Devine-Shinnie wouldn't be quite as strong as the regular Raven-Warren-Meekings-Shinnie set-up, but it certainly would have been stronger than what we put out and maybe we wouldn't have received such a tanking. Playing anyone out of position in any defence is usually a bad move.

That's fair enough, but I think the pairing of Warren and Devine would have been almost equally as strong and Meekings on the right would have made the whole defence stronger than the one we put out on Saturday. As I said before, if it was good enough to see out a win at Tannadice, it was strong enough to start at McDiarmid Park.

As others have alluded to, Devine in at right-back was a strange move, particularly when you consider Saints were playing the likes of Hasselbaink and the extremely dangerous Stevie May. As I mentioned previously, defensively he was alright, but his distribution of the ball was pretty poor and going forward he was as penetrative as a broken pencil! But here's the thing people; what was wrong with playing Meekings at right back? At Tannadice at the start of the reason, Raven went off towards the end and had to be replaced by Devine, where he went into centre-back and Meekings changed onto the right. Now, if it's a good enough set-up to see out a 1-0 win, then it's good enough to start a game against St Johnstone who were thumped 4-0 by Dundee United a few weeks ago. I can understand trying to keep the centre-back together but if we've got the strength-in-depth everyone keeps talking about, and what I believe we do have, then I do believe we would've had a stronger team set-up on the field with Devine and Meekings swapped round, and maybe wouldn't have received such a thrashing.

Maybe not a tactical maestro but I don't believe we could be in the lofty position we are if he did not have a decent grasp on tactics. He's done well in the home games this year and that's by finding a set-up that works and it's working well. We haven't though really been tested at home yet this season. He needs to find a system that works away from home as the home system does, and know when it needs changing mid-match. Away performances suggest, carrying on with the way we've been playing, will see more poor results on the road.

As many of us realised long ago, Butcher is many things, but a tactical maestro is not one of them. The team are made to play a certain way from the start and when it's evident that it's not working, nothing is changed and we don't know what to do. There seems to be no Plan B at all. Substitutions are almost always far too late, very predictable and very unimaginative. And what was the sense in throwing Polworth in at the deep-end like that? He was like a fish out of water and was kept on the field for 72 minutes - it was 72 minutes too long. There's no rules against a half-time change, or even a first half change (the French are big on this apparently) and this was a prime example of when one was needed. And what does it say to Greenhalgh who was superb last week, when he doesn't get a single minute, while Nick Ross was poor away from home on the wing yet again? There's no good saying "it was a blip", "they were better than us" and other such cliches , when we've been poor away for four consecutive games now and the tactics have been identical essentially every time. It wasn't "a blip", it was another consecutive bad away performance. But what do we do away from home? With no real Andrew Shinnie character in the squad this year and particularly since Vincent's injury, would a switch to a 4-1-2-2-1/4-3-3 set-up make a difference? We could go back to soaking up the pressure and then hitting teams on the break with Foran sat in-front of the defence, Draper and someone else (possibly Ross who's always been better in the middle IMO) in the middle and then Doran on one wing and then Greenhalgh or Watkins on the other side, rotating throughout the game, attacking teams out wide? With the players we have available, it could be a better set-up than the all too predictable 4-2-3-1.

Funnily enough, I've only seen him once, in a U20 match quite a while ago and I thought he looked a bit tubby!

That's a fair point, but IMO Greenhalgh should have started. I'd actually drop Nick Ross to be honest - he's been poor particularly away from for the last few weeks. And what has happened to Curtis Allen? Apparently he's now injury free and 100% fit, but he hasn't featured at all. He was fairly highly rated in Northern Ireland I believe and can also play that role behind Mckay. Is it time we chucked him in there with Vincent being out for a considerable amount of time?

That was an absolute disgrace. Absolutely outplayed by St Johnstone, who to be fair were very good, but were ultimately handed the win due to some horrid tactics and all-round bad performances. Could have been even more of an embarrassment had it not been for Dean Brill. He was a class act today. Last week, Greenhalgh came on and was excellent. Surely the logical thing to do was to start with the team we played best with last week, which was with him out wide and Nick Ross down the middle. Did we do it? Of course not. Polworth, who has barely had any game time at all at this level, was thrown in at the deep-end. Where's the logic in that? Unsurprisingly, apart from a couple of nice touches, he was nothing but a headless chicken and should've been hooked at half time. Devine at full-back against Hasselbaink and May was another strange decision (Raven got injured yesterday apparently), but did okay apart from some poor distribution. But lets get on to tactics here. A couple of seasons back and more recently, people were bemoaning the tactic of long hoofs forward towards Billy Mckay. Well today, we had a new tactic. Big long hoofs towards Nick Ross! Did it work? Ehm...no. Nick Ross for my money anyway, is not a winger and has been poor out wide for weeks, while Foran had a bad game by his standards. After the Aberdeen game, people were talking about a reaction in the next league match and heralded the result and performance against Hibs. Forget that attitude right now. Away games are a totally different animal and we've been going from bad to worse in them since the Kilmarnock game a few weeks ago. Home matches have not been a problem for us at all this season, but away from home is a different story, which is strange considering prior to this season we were such a good side on the road. Times need to be a-changing, and a reaction is needed. That test will not will be in the form of Partick Thistle in our next home match but our next test on the road - away to Ross County.

Possibly, unless Watkins or Allen are ready now. Would've thought they might be higher up the pecking order when fully fit.

Be careful what you wish for, Butcher's a big Tory!

I've never been a big fan of this "If it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude. For one, it doesn't make sense. On Saturday, Vincent got injured and thus had to be replaced. Did that mean that the whole system was broken? Did we fall apart? No, in fact if anything we were better with Ross down the middle and Doran and Greenhalgh tearing up the wings. In fact, it could be argued as well, that (Hibs at home aside) the away system is not broken, but it's not really working that great. Beat Kilmarnock, yet it was a fairly mediocre performance, a poor performance against Aberdeen, and an utterly dreadful one against Dundee. James Vincent was also fairly poor in all those ties. Things away from home need to change, and I think taking Vincent out, moving Ross over and putting Greenhalgh in, and taking the game to teams as we do at home, would make a big difference.