tm4tj

Dress rehearsal at Parkhead After the euphoria of an away derby trouncing, the reality will hit hard as Inverness visit their League Cup Final venue of Parkhead to take on Celtic, who suffered their first SPFL defeat in midweek to Aberdeen. Inverness are on a high just now, days after a crushing derby victory in Dingwall and heading towards the League Cup final. A run of three wins, all clean sheets and recent victories over Aberdeen and bogey side St Johnstone. This has put us within touching distance of Motherwell and clear on our own in fourth place looking good for a top six finish with the possibility of a Scottish Cup run to back up the League Cup one and it's not been a bad season so far, has it. Celtic lost their aura in midweek as they slumped to defeat at Pittodrie and lost their first goal in 13 SPFL games as Jonny Hayes smashed a superb goal behind Fraser Forster and Adam Rooney added a second with the head. Incidentally, Aberdeen were the last team to put a goal past Forster way back on 23rd November. I suppose it's not been a bad season for Celtic either. Of course, we did score twice against Celtic this season as well, but we relinquished our lead to end up with a 2-2 draw in August. A repeat of that would be pleasing. The return fixture in Inverness saw Celtic win narrowly by 1-0, an early Commons goal doing the damage. Virgil van Dijk's red card has been rescinded and he will be free to play against Inverness. Stefan Johansen has recovered from an ankle injury, but Mikael Lustig, Beram Kayal and Steven Mouyokolo will miss the visit of Inverness who have no fresh injury worries. John Hughes has choices if he wishes to tinker with his line up, but he is torn between giving it a go, or trying to find his best team/formation for the League Cup final in a couple of weeks. Billy McKay is celebrating another international call up, great recognition for the form he has been in this season. tm4tj prediction:- It's difficult to see Celtic slipping up twice in the same week in domestic football, but if anyone can do it, then we can. Our midfield is as good as any in the league and in striker Billy McKay we have a player who can upset the best of them. Kris Commons does likewise for Celtic but if our defence stays focussed, then a share of the points is on the cards.

Out of the Shadows The last time they tried to play this game, the plug was pulled at the Global Energy Stadium and the players were left in the shadows! That was the 25th October when floodlight failure caused by a network problem outside the stadium left everybody in the dark and the game to be abandoned at half time with the score at 0-0. This time round Ross County will be able to field a stronger side since the January sales have seen them bring in almost a whole new team. Gone are the Grant Munro's, Sproule's and Kovasevics' and in have come Kiss, Skew, Songo, Arquin, Tidser, Micic and Ikonomu, all well kent names in Dingwall. Inverness whilst not engaging in the transfer market satisfied themselves by hanging on to all their squad, and the continuity this brings will stabilise their drive for a top-six finish once more. Inverness beat St Johnstone at the weekend while Ross County were easing themselves away from the play off position by beating fellow strugglers St Mirren 2-1 at Dingwall, Arquin and De Leeuw the scorers. Derek Adams still provides a decent floor show during the games and he and Danny Lennon were having powder puffs at ten paces on the touchline last Saturday. Nothing new there then! Sixteen points separate the sides just now and that sees County in ninth place and vieing with Killie, Partick and St Mirren for the play off spot with Hearts seemingly all but down and out. However, there are plenty points still to play for and a run similar to what they achieved last season could see them push towards the top-six, but that's a bit off at the moment. It's six games since Inverness won in Dingwall, a 1-0 League Cup win in August 2004 Of more concern to us is the fact that Billy McKay has not been tucking them away with the regularity he showed in the early part of the season. His link play and hold up is still fantastic for a diminutive striker, it's just the goals that have gone through a barren spell, only two in 2014. Richie Foran is making good progress since returning from injury and we have the luxury of depth in midfield, with Vincent and Ross waiting in the wings and Tremarco and Devine at the rear. The only weak link if you like is that we don't have another proven scorer, but Greg Tansey could do some damage from midfield, never shy at trying his luck from distance. Anyway, enough nonsense from me, Ginger Jaggy has this more detailed preview for you.............. Derby by Night Tonight we make the short trip back over the Black Isle to Dingwall for the rearranged fixture after the embarrassing blackout last time out. For us this is the first of our rearranged matches as we look at a very congested calendar from now until the split. Our close neighbours will be looking to take advantage of our pile up as well as hoping some minds are not on their game as they look towards the biggest day in the clubs history. Dingwall has always been a tricky venue but after winning in Perth for the first time in three seasons then confidence is high to win our first league game on enemy territory since a first division match back in 2003. With places up for grabs, Yogi Hughes will have many auditions to choose his starting X1 from if he hasn’t got a good idea already for the cup final in just three weeks. But if he still has doubts then what better a venue than the passion and fight that a derby usually brings. Yogi has already one derby under his belt and it was a very disappointing but Saturday’s win may put the wind back in the Inverness sails after a stop start beginning to Yogi’s tenure. Changes may be needed with the fixture pile up but it is likely that it will be as you were from the weekend. There may have been not many goals scored compared to our blistering early season form but a 1-0 win here would be a great result on a pitch that goes against strengths. With the wide areas of the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium our wingers can find space to stretch defences but in Dingwall as we have seen before our wingers can become ineffective by the tight nature of the pitch. Some have suggested a more direct approach and with the return of Richie Foran it may not be a bad idea to add some physical muscle upfront when the centre areas are likely to be congested. Whoever plays and whatever formation is deployed the lads know they have a wonderful chance to narrow the gap even more to 2nd place with Aberdeen facing Celtic and Motherwell facing a tricky trip to Perth. As for our neighbours they will be hoping to make it three wins in a row over us after winning in the New Year derby and more painfully rubbing our noses in it last May. They will also be on a high after beating fellow struggler's St Mirren on Saturday. We need to start picking up points for a chance of European qualification, then points are needed at the other end of the spectrum for County. After a brilliant first season in which the master seethe led his team to the top six in their first season in the top flight, this season has been a more realistic one with lots of foreign imports failing to gel leaving County battling to avoid the play offs. Their win at the weekend does move them up to 9th but with it being so tight between four sides they are only one point above the play-off position. There squad does look to have improved since we last faced them with several impressive loan signings helping them to improve their form. Freddie Arquin and Jordan Slew have made them more dangerous in attack and with Cardiff loaner Filip Kiss and ex Morton Midfielder Michael Tidser joining they have more creativity and goals from midfield now than they did before the window opened. It will be another tight game with lot of effort and determination but it will probably lack any real quality even though some games have been crackers in the past. I think it will be very important to be strong in the middle and having the captain supremo back will help vastly for this type of game. It is unlikely to be a sell out but there will be a decent crowd which will hopefully see a resolution this time. For me I'm going to say we will nick it, you can never tell in derby matches and form goes out of the window but if we show we want it more then I think we have enough quality to make the biggest contribution to the match and win 1-0. Aside from the football, it looks like Derek the seethe Adams was back to his horribly aggressive self after not taking too kindly to a couple of challenges from Saints skipper Jim Goodwin. Looking at it, yes an elbow was involved but it didn’t look deliberate so for me another typical Adams throwing his toys out of the pram. Calm down Derek it is only a CONTACT SPORT after all. Hopefully the fans tonight will wind him up even more and that he will have something more to moan about when we return to Inverness with the vital three points. Both sides have full squads to choose from, so it's game on..................... :ictscarf:

Scottish Cup Replay Stranraer make the long trip this time to meet Inverness in their Scottish Cup replay, the first game ending 2-2 at Stair Park last Saturday. The Blues have climbed to third in the table after drawing 1-1 with Arbroath on Saturday and have only two defeats in their last twenty one games, losing twice to Dunfermline. They have the second best defensive record in League One conceding 30 times and have a +10 goal difference. It's been a good season so far for the team from Dumfries and Galloway. A 1-1 draw at Ibrox showing that they have the resilience to make it difficult for teams to get the better of them and they did not look out of place in the first game at Stranraer where Inverness had to come from behind to earn a replay, Billy McKay scoring the vital leveller for the SPFL side. Incidentally, their last four games have all ended in draws, and should this one go down the same route, then it will take penalties to separate the sides. Inverness have lost their way somewhat and John Hughes' record has, to say the least, been mediocre since he took over. It was always going to be difficult to maintain the early season momentum, but only five wins in fifteen games since taking charge is not the form of teams challenging for top positions in the league. One of those wins was in the last round of the Cup when we disposed of Morton. Maybe the break from the rigours of League duty will take some of the pressure off, but defeat is unthinkable and would make Yogi's job even tougher. Our forwards have been a bit wayward recently and even Billy McKay is finding it more difficult to score regularly, a sign that teams are marking him more closely and not allowing the wee man time or space to do the damage. But Billy is more than just a poacher and his hold up play has been a joy to behold at times, his strength defying his size. Richie Foran had another twenty minutes against Hearts and will only get stronger, which will give Yogi another selection headache as our midfield gets better and better. James Vincent looked good against Hearts and he was the man sacrificed to give Foran some game time and with Tansey looking the part it might be some time before we see Williams or Ross starting. However, it will be horses for courses over the coming weeks and maybe this game will be an opportunity for some of our eager squad players to show their talents. In saying that, we also need to ensure we get the job done, and I'm sure Yogi will not be taking this game lightly, and rightly so as Stranraer matched us exceptionally well in the first game. Stranraer, like Inverness, warmed up for this game with a disappointing home draw. Grant Gallagher scored with a long range drive to salvage a point against bottom club Arbroath, whilst our goal shy players were returning a blank against a resolute Hearts. Not the best preparation by either side, but plenty for Inverness to think about ahead of this 5th round Cup replay which kicks off at 19:45. Adults £10.00, Concessions £5.00 John Hughes is quoted as saying:- "With the League Cup final coming up, everyone will want a slot for that game. "They have that incentive there to make sure they are in that starting XI. "If that is the case and I have boys saying, 'you can't drop me, you can't leave me out', then we will be winning games right up to the cup final. "It'd be great if we could go out and coast past Stranraer, but I've never known football to be like that. His counterpart Stephen Aitken said:- "We want to win through to face Dundee United in the next round. "But there is no pressure on us to do anything other than play to our potential. "Inverness are in a cup final already and in fifth place in the top flight, but we will look to keep the game tight and hopefully spring a surprise." Latest Team News Inverness have a concern over Gary Warren who opened up an old war wound at the weekend and John Hughes might be looking to freshen up things to keep the squad on their toes. It would be prudent to give Danny Devine some game time before we meet Aberdeen in the League Cup Final with Warren unavailable for that game. Stranraer will be without midfielder Stephen Stirling as he is cup-tied. He played for Morton in the defeat by Caley Thistle in the 4th round. Chris Aitken's ankle injury will keep him out, while a hip problem means Marc Corcoran misses out. Dundee United await the victor in the quarter finals, and should that be Inverness, then it will be the only all SPFL tie of the round. Quarter Final draw Aberdeen v Dumbarton Raith Rovers v St Johnstone Rangers v Albion Rovers ICT/Stranraer v Dundee United Gary Warren's replacement gets some training done ahead of the League Cup Final.....

Deja View It's another week coming up where we take on Hearts followed closely by Stranraer, sounds familiar. In fact it's the Highlands versus Edinburgh this weekend as Hibs take on County in Edinburgh, but we don't want to bother you with that nonsense! Hearts come North on Saturday in the fourth meeting between the clubs this season, Inverness having won twice, three times if you count the penalty shoot out at Easter Road. John Hughes will be hoping to keep eleven players on the park this time as we finished minus Gary Warren and Josh Meekings last time out, although Meekings has since had his red card rescinded. Hearts are currently occupying the relegation position, hardly surprising given their 15 point deduction at the start of the season for meddling with administration. However, that aside, they would still be bottom, albeit only by two points. The good news for Hearts though, is that their points total is now in positive figures, +5. The Jambos have taken seven points from their last three games with an excellent win at Dingwall, and victory over St Mirren building on a 3-3 draw with St Johnstone. Prior to that, Hearts had gone ten games without winning with only two draws in that sequence. It has been a struggle for Hearts on the park this season, their highlights being two wins against the Dons and victory in the first SPFL Edinburgh derby then knocking Hibs out of the League Cup at the quarter final stage. They looked reasonable in parts in the semi, but we were the team with more quality and composure on the ball and I felt the game would have been won sooner had we not been reduced in numbers. In Paul McCallum, they have a big front man who showed that he could be a handful at Easter Road and Ryan Stevenson returning from injury will only get stronger. However, as our squad starts to steer clear of injury, then our midfield looks more menacing with Greg Tansey able to give the ball some welly. We now have more depth to our middle with the pacey Marley Watkins and Danny Williams able to run at defenders and the strength of Draper and the returning Vincent and Foran adding some graft to the guile of Doran and Ross then this is an area we should be able to dominate and benefit from. Yogi has choices to make in his squad now and it may be a case of horses for courses over the coming weeks. Captain Richie Foran will continue his comeback after coming on as a substitute at Stranraer and playing ninety minutes with the under 20 side in midweek, albeit as a centre back. Could be a useful bit of practice for Richie with Warren unavailable for the League Cup final against the Dons. Richie is however still nursing his way through games as he is feeling his age allegedly. Yogi has an otherwise fully fit squad to choose from. Hearts young midfielder David Smith will be out of action for some six weeks after it was discovered he has a hairline fracture in his knee, sustained in the semi-final defeat. Jason Holt and Jamie Walker are also still out and another further blow leaves Gary Locke with an ever increasing problem as suspensions rule out defender Kevin McHattie and striker Callum Paterson. tm4tj Prediction:- Hearts did run us close in the cup game, but we were reduced to nine men by the end and I believe had we kept our full quota on the park then we would have gone on to win inside ninety minutes. We won here already this season where 2-0 flattered Hearts somewhat as Inverness missed a raft of chances and should have run up a cricket score. However, they seem to be learning fast but given their injury problems and suspensions I can see a repeat of the early season score.

Replay required to separate sides Inverness are still searching for their first win at Stair Park Stranraer after the sides drew 2-2 in their Scottish Cup 5th round encounter at a windswept stadium. A somewhat towsy affair saw Inverness take the lead when Aaron Doran's shot come cross found the back of the net after forty minutes, but five minutes later Martin Grehan levelled from the spot after Graeme Shinnie had shoved him over inside the box. It was no more than Stranraer deserved as they had matched the SPFL side in the first half. Maybe Inverness were feeling the effects of last weekends heroic effort in the League Cup semi-final. Whatever it was, the second half was going down the same route and Richie Foran made his long awaited comeback after 58 minutes to try and inject some urgency about the visitors. Billy McKay almost grabbed a goal but was blocked by some last ditch defending, and when Jamie Longworth capitalised on a loose header in midfield and raced forward to score with a powerful low drive, a shock looked to be on the cards. Unfortunately for the Blues, McKay popped up in the six yard box to head Inverness towards a replay after Foran headed the ball back across goal for a simple finish for wee Billy. No more scoring and few chances in the last fifteen minutes, but Stranraer gave as good as they got and Inverness were relatively pleased to hear the final whistle and get another crack at progressing to meet Dundee United in the next round. Full Time 2-2 Stranraer: Mitchell, Robertson, Docherty, Bell, Rumsby, McKeown, Winter, Gallacher, Longworth (Forde 87), Grehan, Stirling (McKenna 82). Subs not used: McGregor, Kinnaird, Borris, Rafferty. Inverness CT: Brill, Raven, Shinnie, Draper, Warren, Meekings, Watkins (Foran 58), Tansey, Mckay, Vincent (Williams 68). Subs not used: Esson, Ross, Devine, Tremarco, Polworth. Referee: Kevin Clancy. Attendance: 722. Kudos to the hardy bunch of fans that made the 500 mile round trip to stand in the wind and rain. Nostalgia is not what it used to be! Some rare sightings on the BBC highlights where Naelifts made a scarce appearance along with Capital Caley, great faces for the radio some might say, certainly kept the crows away. Here's a fans eye view from the Immortal Howden Ender who made the journey for olde times sake:- Well that was the best away day in feckin ages. Early morning start - two carriage steam train to the End of the Earth, travelling at a maximum 40mph - two pubs in Stranraer - one called The Pub and one called The Fitba Pub - great craic all day with a crew of REAL ICT fans - A sh**hole of a ground, pissing down rain and a gale force wind. Standing on a grass embankment watching a game of football being played in a peat bog. FECKIN, FECKIN GREAT. So, it's back to Inverness for a replay, scheduled for Tuesday 18th February, and that's still winless at Stair Park for Inverness. Dundee United await the victors after they dumped St Mirren today. Full Draw below, with no other potential all SPFL ties, that's assuming we can get the better of Stranraer in the replay, but we will need to perform a bit livelier than we did at Stair Park. However, we did avoid the banana skin so far, unlike our olde gaffer Terry Butcher and his Hibs side who went out at Easter Road thanks to a superb winning header from Grant Anderson, scoring with a back header from fifteen yards. Raith Rovers v St Johnstone Aberdeen v Dumbarton Stranraer/Inverness CT v Dundee United Rangers v Albion Rovers

February 8th anniversary tour From one cup to another in the space of one week. Last season we tumbled out of both cups in a week, this season we have already bettered that by reaching the League Cup final after a dramatic marathon against Hearts. We now look forward to our next mission, an away fixture at Stranraer. After the heroics of last Sunday at Easter Road, Inverness make the hopefully more sedate trip to Stair Park Stranraer to face the League One team in the Scottish Cup 5th round. So, what do we know about Stranraer? Well, the ferry will take you across the sea to Ireland; if you were here before 2011. You now have to go to Cairnryan to catch the ferry. The town is situated at the head of Loch Ryan. The Castle of St John is a medieval tower house built around 1500, and I have it on good authority that Johndo was imprisoned there once. The North West Castle was the first hotel in the world with its own indoor curling ice rink, built in 1820. Colin Calderwood, Kevin Kyle and Hammy McMillan are some of the better known local sports persons from the town. The third oldest football club in Scotland are based in Stranraer, only Queens Park and Kilmarnock are older. And that is the reason we are going there on Saturday for an unusual kick off time, 3:00pm, well unusual by our recent standards. The Blues play at Stair Park, a stadium that holds around 3,000 fans, over 1800 seated. Their record attendance is 6800 for a game against Rangers in January 1948. But let's get up to date. Stranraer 2014 are playing in the Scottish League One, the same division as The Rangers. Ominously, their record victories have come in recent years in this very competition, a couple of 9-0 thrashings, (St Cuthberts Wanderers and Wigtown). They have also won the same trophy we did by winning the Scottish Challenge Cup in 1996, defeating St Johnstone 1-0 in front of 5,222 at Broadwood Stadium. Our victory was in season 2003/2004. We have played Stranraer seven times before and the odds favour Stranraer with three wins, three draws and a solitary victory for Inverness, a 3-0 Challenge Cup game in season 2009/2010, the last time the sides met. This season Stranraer have got themselves comfortably into the play-off positions and have drawn with the club formerly known as Rangers. Only one defeat in their last fourteen games seems like good form to me, no matter what league you play in and that breeds confidence. Inverness have never won at Stranraer and we have drawn twice in Scottish Cup games against them over ninety minutes. A 1-1 draw at Stair Park led to a 0-0 game in Inverness where we eventually won 4-3 on penalties. Inverness might have Richie Foran available to make the bench after a lengthy injury lay off. Josh Meekings' red card was reduced to a yellow making him available for selection and Gary Warren will only serve his suspension in the League Cup. So, basically, we should have a full squad and Nick Ross will be hoping to get a start after his legendary last gasp equaliser last week. Stranraer have Marc Corcorran and Chris Aitken unavailable through injury but manager Stephen Aitken will be looking for the same commitment that saw them oust Clyde by 4-1 in the last round. Stirling, McKeown, Longworth and Grehan scored that day. tm4tj prediction:- I'm not as convinced as some that this will be an easy day out and without having won in deepest Wigtownshire before, it may well take another return trip to Inverness to settle this one, but I'll be pleasantly pleased if we come away with a victory. Great to have Richie Foran available and he will be a huge positive, but let's not treat this lightly, we all know what can happen with that scenario, remember remember the 8th of February, oops, it's that anniversary again........................... 1-1.