tm4tj

Buddy Hell A great start to the New Year for Inverness with the derby win and hot on the heels of that is the visit of County's relegation threatened contenders, St Mirren. St Mirren's form guide makes for distressing reading. Only one win in their last ten league games and that was a couple of weeks ago at Dens Park. That's a hell of a run. The result of this is plain to see as they languish one point above an equally poor Ross County, and along with Motherwell, these three teams look set to battle for the relegation spot this season unless a drastic turnaround after the transfer window occurs. The Buddies have only won three league games this term and sit second bottom on 11 points with Inverness doing somewhat better on 35 points after 11 wins. Our record was tarnished in recent games with three defeats on the spin until the derby game saw us trounce County 3-1 in Dingwall. The recent cup pairing saw us take the game to a replay after a 1-1 draw in Paisley thanks to a second half equaliser from defender Josh Meekings after Marc McAusland had opened the scoring in the first half. It was a different story in the replay as Inverness swept St Mirren aside and the 4-0 scoreline flattered the visitors. Warren, Tansey, Williams and Shinnie scored that night but it could easily have been doubled as Inverness swamped the Buddies. We have seen off a few St Mirren gaffers in our time, and soon after this crushing defeat the hapless Tommy Craig was removed from office. Gary Teale has been in temporary charge since then and three games later they won their first game in eleven attempts beating Dundee 3-1. Kenny McLean scored a brace and Stevie Mallan added the other. Teale has secured McLean's eligibility to play in this game, and that's a bonus for them as he is their talismanic goal threat and would be a big miss if excluded. It's no coincidence that the same man that gifted Brian Graham the penalty for St Johnstone was the man involved with McLean's 'red' card. Yes, the incompetent Willie Collum, but thankfully he will not be at Inverness on Sunday. It's high time the authorities punished the inadequacies in our refereeing system. Bring back the men from Luxembourg, a breath of fresh air that was! Bobby Madden is the man in charge on Sunday. Oh well! However, a word of caution for Inverness. The only thing that is predictable about these games is that they are unpredictable. Go back to 13th December and another side from the West came North and embarrassed us in a 4-0 hammering. Partick have the knack of getting under our skin and irritating the hell out of us and that setback seemed to knock our confidence for a game or two. We have also been turned over by a lowly St Mirren side before around this time of year, Boxing Day 2010 springs to mind when they came North expecting nothing and went home with a 2-1 win under their belt. It had all looked rosy as Lee Cox scored early, but a double from Steven Thompson clinched a deserved win for the Paisley side. So, beware the underdog. Ross Draper has served his two game ban and will be included in the squad for the visit of St Mirren. Mind you, he is not guaranteed a starting slot given the excellent team performance at Dingwall on New Years day. Richie Foran, as is the norm these days is still out. On the red card theme Kenny McLean will be available as his club are appealing the punishment he was given by the aforementioned Willie Collum; another fine mess Willie! McLean was dismissed during the 2-1 defeat at home to Kilmarnock when he appeared to move his head towards Ross Barbour. And to complete the theme, striker Steven Thompson is also available after completing a ban. Marc McAusland could feature, despite receiving seven stitches when he suffered a head wound against Killie, but Ellis Plummer, has returned to Manchester City after bringing his one-year loan switch to an early conclusion. He had been out since September with a groin injury. tm4tj prediction:- You can't argue with the statistics that point to a win for Inverness but St Mirren are now in a dog fight at the bottom, and every dog has it's day. The cup result was overwhelmingly in our favour. I doubt the same will happen in the scrap for League points. Kenny McLean is the main goal threat along with Steven Thompson, but as long as we have our defensive caps on, then I won't be arguing with the stats. Home win, maybe 2-1. So, there you go, an Inverness v St Mirren preview without Ross Tokely being mentioned.......................................Oh damn, spoiled it, my bad.

New Year Derby Day It's derby time and Inverness head to Shadowland to first foot the Global Energy Stadium on New Years Day for the second meeting this season, the first ending in a 1-1 draw in early October. The frost has set in this month and Inverness have hit the skids. Ross County seem to be frozen and haven't shifted much, but Inverness are on the slide and moving in their direction with three defeats on the trot and zero goals in those games which has seen us drop from second to fifth with St Johnstone about to overtake us. Happy Days! It's four games since Inverness scored and won a game, beating Dundee at Dens by 2-1. Mckay and Christie were on target that day, but it was a less than convincing performance. Since then, three straight defeats, all winnable games, have seen us slide towards County in the table and confidence amongst the fans is low. Yogi's passing game has been well and truly sussed out and plan B has yet to materialise. The mystery against Aberdeen was why he chose to go with Tremarco at left back when Shinnie has operated there to good effect all season. James Vincent was overlooked for central midfield, a position many feel is his favoured slot. Another damning feature of that game was the reluctance to change it or make early substitutions when all around could see we were struggling to make headway. Whatever his reasons, he needs to sort it rapidly or we could be staring at four in a row. County will be buoyed by their point at Parkhead where they ground out a no scoring draw. Unfortunately for them, they still hit the bottom with St Mirren winning. However, they always seem to up their game when they see us coming and get in our faces, similar to Partick Thistle and we all know the result of that. Ross Draper misses his second game for his sending off at Perth and Richie Foran is still sidelined; so what's new? I'll tell you what's new, the transfer window is about to open and the rumour mill is in full swing. Shinnie, Watkins, Mckay to name three have been noticeably off the pace in the last few games and it's just possible that the transfer speculation is getting to them. One or two have done it all before and Greg Tansey knows where the grass is greener. Others like Nick Ross have not progressed into Yogi's thoughts and might be better elsewhere and Hughes will start hunting in earnest at the prospect of losing some of our top players. For the Staggies, there will be no Dingwall in Dingwall as the aforementioned Tony is out injured. Graham Carey and Michael Gardyne are both struggling to shrug off injuries. Jackson Irvine is a possibility along with Filip Kiss. He's never heard of Tain and he comes from sunny Spain, ohhh Reguero. The former Inverness keeper has been in the nets in recent games displacing another former keeper, Mark Brown. They say that nostalgia aint what it used to be, but we could do with some of this on the 1st. tm4tj prediction:- It's all adding up to a severe dose of unpredictability. I'm not brimming with confidence after our last three games and would bite your arm off at the offer of a point to help us get back on track. We need to be more clinical in front of goal and a direct approach might suit the County pitch better instead of faffing around at the back and gifting goals like nobodies business. If we can keep out County's eager attack, then my best bet is a goalless draw. Happy New Year. Here's wee tune to cheer you all up.................

Time to Regroup Last weeks result showed that nothing is certain in football, and with an away trip to Perth on the cards this weekend then it would take a brave man, or woman, to be confident about predicting the outcome of this one. This encounter is traditionally a tight affair, although last October St Johnstone did what Partick did to us, hammered us 4-0. It was a game to forget in the Highlands as Partick did their homework and pressed us so hard they squeezed the ball into the net four times in what turned out to be a disastrous afternoon for Inverness where nothing went right. It might have been different had Marley Watkins been able to take full advantage when he muscled into the box early on, but he shot across the keeper and past the wrong side of the post. It went from bad to worse and Dean Brill will have better days. In fairness to him, his defenders let him down badly and the retention passing game was non existent as we handed possession over to Partick. They needed no second prompting and deservedly cuffed us. However, that was last week and Yogi has been busy trying to address the issues. Partick had our cards marked and their pressing game forced us to make errors. Maybe this week we might make one back pass less and that could help to raise the tempo. Whatever was the problem, I hope it's fixed before we take on St Johnstone with half the league bunching up a point or two below us. Ryan Christie and Aaron Doran could make the starting eleven this week. They have been playing great wee cameo's recently coming on late in the games. We were crying out for some creativity and tenacity against Partick but by the time they entered the fray the game was lost. Carl Tremarco is another who could be pushing for a start. Since that 4-0 defeat at Perth, we have won the last four encounters, scoring six and conceding only once in the process. We sit second in the table on 32 points, 9 points above St Johnstone in sixth place. Our goal difference is 10 better than Perth's, but another heavy defeat will eat into that quickly. LAM, that's life after May, has seen the Perth Saints struggle to get into their stride at the start of the season. However, they are unbeaten in their last six league games, and three wins on the bounce has seen them clamber into the top six. They see this as a springboard to challenge for a European place with winnable games coming up over the festive period. Michael O'Halloran and Brian Graham are men on form right now scoring seven times over the last six games and will be looking to add to their tallies for the season. Murray Davidson is getting back into the swing of it after being out injured and St Johnstone will be looking to consolidate their place in the top-six. Inverness are smarting after the Partick debacle and Hughes is threatening to shuffle the pack a bit to freshen up the side. Christie and Doran spring to mind as well as Tremarco, but others like Polworth, Devine and Ross could play a part. Dean Brill will be looking over his shoulders after last weeks poor performance and Ryan Esson is another who is experienced enough to play without letting the standards of the team drop. Not much team news from Inverness apart from that age old story about Richie Foran being in rehab. More interesting information coming from Perth and the news that James McFadden is out with a hamstring strain. That has to cheer up the Inverness camp surely. Tommy Wright has no squabbles over his replacement though as David Wotherspoon has filled the role effectively, but he is hoping to have Faddy back for their Tayside derby next week. tm4tj prediction:- If we have gotten over last weeks mayhem, then we could get back on track with a win at Perth. It's not one of our favourite grounds to take points from but without McFadden, then that's one danger man eliminated. However, I'll err on the side of caution and settle for a share of the points in a scoring draw. 1-1 should see both camps happy enough for Xmas.