tm4tj

Chance for redemption If we fail to turn up again this weekend, the Northern Constabulary will surely send out a search party for eleven footballers dressed in blue and red. That would be two weeks posted missing; surely not. It's the same scenario, different competition, Inverness against the top side in Scotland and on a hiding to nothing. Inverness were not at their best last weekend and Celtic benefited from that by effortlessly knocking the Highlanders out of the Scottish Cup. So, what went wrong last week? Well, we have not had our problems to seek on the injury front. We were down to the bare bones last weekend and it showed. Chris Hogg as we know is out for the season with knee ligament damage,read the fightback, feel the pain http://chrishoggthef...k.blogspot.com/ and you can share the pain and emotion it all brings. The cup replay at Dunfermline put the quick learning young Spaniard Roman Golobart all but out for the season and he has returned to his hometown of Barcelona to rehabilitate. Andrew Shinnie broke a bone in his foot in the same game and his season has come to an abrupt end as well. We loaned in Steve Williams from Bradford City and he looked excellent against Hearts, but he missed the last two games with a knee injury. Aaron Doran on his way back has done his hamstring and his leave will be extended now. Owain Tudur-Jones has missed the season so far with a serious knee injury, but thankfully he is nearing full speed in training. Billy McKay has missed the last three with a hamstring injury as well; maybe him and Doran are sharing the same one. We have had others who have flitted in and out of the squad at various intervals as well but for a team like Inverness, these are crippling blows and hard to overcome. Because of the injuries, we have to keep changing the team lines and this disruption every week causes a lack of fluidity throughout the side. It's something we have had to live with since the start of the season and it took us a long time to come to terms with it, but this does catch up with you and further injuries have decimated the squad again and thrown us into disarray once more. Our much lauded groundsman, Tommy Cummings has worked miracles on our pitch in the worst of weathers, but the pitch has looked tired recently after weeks of heavy rain, and three games in three weeks has taken it's toll on the surface with no time for recovery. It cut's up very quickly at the moment and Chris Smith will tell you all about the ball bobbling around on the divots. That's not an excuse, that is fact. Were we robbed by Celtic? No. Simple as that, Celtic deserved to win that game and we looked as though we could have played all week and not troubled the Celtic defence, such was our ineptness on the day. We simply had too few players willing to get their hands dirty and trying to make a game of it. The worrying thing for Celtic though, is that the statistics show that we had a similar amount of attempts and we even managed more corners, but the damning statistic is that Celtic scored two goals and we scored zilch. Even more worrying for them is that both goals came from errors by Inverness' makeshift defence. We matched Celtic for half an hour and looked as likely as them to score in open play. Stalwart Ross Tokely failed to cut out a ball forward and Samaras lashed an angled drive straight at reserve keeper Jonny Tuffey who failed to keep the ball out. The pace deceived him and it flashed through his palms into the roof of the net. Tremendous strike by Samaras, but oh dear, a comedy of errors from the Inverness last line, Proctor not tracking, Tokely not cutting out and Tuffey not stopping the shot. Worse was to follow as Sutherland played Gillet into trouble near his own corner flag, his clearance was awkward and blocked by the Celtic attack, and Hooper chased a lost cause...... or was it. As Proctor dithered, he mugged him and sped off along the bye line only for Proc to fell him as he entered the box. Soft or not it was a penalty and game over. You might get away with these errors against some of the other SPL teams, but come on, against the top teams you have to be squeaky clean, and squeaky clean we were not. Like February 8th, that game is history and it's back to SPL chores this Saturday. How can we change things? At the moment, our hands are tied because of injuries, so the personnel will be similar. What has to change is the attitude and aptitude of the players on the park, and the tactics of the management team need to adjust to the players on the park. Lumping long high balls up to a lone striker did not work last weekend. That won't work this weekend either. We are always better with the ball at our feet and running at the defence. Jonny Hayes needs to put his worst ninety minutes behind him and might find the smoother wide open surface at Parkhead suits him better (as a visiting player Jonny). About the only alteration we could have made at the back last weekend would have been to move Kenny Gillet into a sweeper role beside Rossco and fit Graeme Shinnie into the left back position. Foran has found his niche and was one of the few who looked like he gave a fork in his holding midfield role. Hayes, Tansey and Ross should be the midfield but has Tade looked jaded in the last few games? Maybe time for new boys Gnakpa and Winnall to make their first starts, or possibly Shane Sutherland. Let's be honest, it's a tough ask to take anything from Parkhead and we could be on a hiding to nothing, but looking at those statistics again does show that we were maybe not that far off the mark and Celtic were not quite as good as Neil Lennon would have us believe. Celtic had the inconvenience of having to play in midweek. They visited Tynecastle, the scene of Neil Lennon being attacked by a fan, or not, as our judiciary system cast their eyes over the event. Hearts were the last domestic club to beat Celtic this season, some 23 games ago, a 2-0 win on the 2nd October, St Johnstone the only other SPL club to do so, 1-0 at Parkhead. This time, Celtic made no mistake and raced into a three goal lead before half time. The match finished 4-0 to Celtic who simply brushed Hearts aside. This sends an ominous warning to the rest of the SPL that the Bhoys are on a run and have serious ambitions to win the title this season. That result makes Saturdays task look even more daunting than ever. Celtic are now 13 consecutive wins in a row towards achieving their goal. The Caley Jags stats for SPL games at Parkhead is somewhat disturbing. One point from nine games is not clever. The worst of these being a 5-0 drubbing in September 2007. Four of these games have been decided by a single goal advantage. Inverness have scored only five times, two of those coming in the 2-2 draw last season when we came from two down to snatch a point. Celtic have been scoring more freely, twenty-two goals in nine games, that's around two and a half goals per game. If you add in the three cup games at Parkhead then that's another eleven goals for Celtic and five for Inverness. ***Latest Team News*** The Inverness list goes on and on. Andrew Shinnie has had his operation on his foot, Chris Hogg has had a successful knee operation, Golobart is back in Spain, Doran has torn his hamstring and not to be outdone Billy McKay also has a hamstring injury. Owain Tudur-Jones is making progress after his rehab and may well find himself included in todays squad. He has missed six and a half months of this season and throwing him into the lions den might not be the best thing to do, but he is believed to be in the squad and maybe a cameo role awaits. Steve Williams resumed training this week, but looks set to miss out again. It doesn't rain but it pours; if Gregory Tade's tweeting is anything to go by, he will miss today's game through injury, which opens the door for Sam Winnall to start against Celtic. Celtic fielded Daniel Majstorovic and new Polish striker Pawel Brozek as midweek substitutions, the rest of the squad were unchanged from the game at Inverness and I expect this weekends eleven to be along similar lines. Rabiu Ibrahim has been added to the squad but Thomas Rogne is doubtful with a calf injury. This was last weeks starting line up against Inverness in the Cup. Forster, Wilson, Rogne, Mathews, Mulgrew, Commons, Brown, Wanyama, Ledley, Hooper, Samaras And a wealth of talent are available just in case, Stokes, Isaguirre, Forrest, Cha Du-Ri and the midweek subs all champing at the bit to get on the park. tm4tj Prediction:- After suffering last weeks meek attempt to stay in the Scottish Cup it would be simplistic to write off Inverness' chances in this one. Strangely enough, I believe we will perform better on the bigger stage at Parkhead. A win may be asking a bit much, but a performance would be encouraging for the weeks ahead as relegation is still a possibility and the bottom two clubs can not get any worse than they are at present. Would I be asking for too much if we could secure a point or should we be looking at a stroll in the park for Celtic? Fingers crossed, I'll look for a 1-1 draw. sotonict will be making the long trek from Southampton for this game and he will be scribing the match report should he be able to avoid the perils of meeting up with the mob. So, look back online after the dust has settled and see what he has to say.

Past glories count for nothing. A break from SPL duty this weekend and an early start as current Scottish Cup holders Celtic face Inverness at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium in a fifth round Scottish Cup tie. Remember to set your alarms on Friday night before you go to bed as this game will kick off at 12:45. In the last round, holders Celtic strolled past the Blue Toon loon's fae Peterheid; an Anthony Stokes hat-trick proving too much for the Heid. Incidentally, Peterhead now have four ex-ICT players in their ranks. Three strikers in Rory McAllister, Martin Bavidge and the legendary Dennis Wyness, a man who knows a thing or two about putting Celtic out of the cup. The fourth player is another legend, Roy McBain. Unfortunately for that quartet, the only thing of note for them was that McAllister and McBain were both booked, and I suppose the accountant was happy as a ground record crowd of 3700 witnessed the defeat. Inverness were made to work twice as hard. The only all SPL clash of the round saw them paired at home to bottom club Dunfermline. Surely a stick on home win, but the Cup does strange things to teams. This tie was only decided after a replay and extra time, but the major talking point in both games was the goalkeeping errors that proved to be crucial to the outcome and for Inverness serious injuries to important players. In the first game, the unbelievable happened, Andy Barrowman opened the scoring after Kenny Gillet was sent off for bringing down Andy Kirk. Barrowman was on hand to nod the loose ball in after Tuffy parried a Martin Hardie free kick onto his head and he nodded home from three yards. Tuffey was at fault in the lead up to Gillet being sent off, but his blushes were spared as blunderman Chris Smith made the first of his cock-ups in the sixth minute of injury time to allow Jonny Hayes the chance of a free run at goal after Smith missed a straightforward rolling ball. Inverness were off the hook and an embarrassed Hayes buried his head in the turf as Smith looked a forlorn figure picking the ball out of the unguarded net. Off to East End Park for a replay and surely lightning could not strike twice. Well, the similarities to the first game were uncanny. Andy Barrowman once more opened the scoring, Chris Smith became a serial blunderer and Jonny Hayes was once more embarrassed as he rolled an equaliser into an empty net to set up extra time. This time though, with eleven men on the park, Dunfermline were no match for Inverness and a stunning goal from Substitute Andrew Shinnie and the clincher from Greg Tansey finally saw off the Pars and set up this clash with Celtic. However, the price for this victory was Roman Golobart and Andrew Shinnie both picked up seious injuries and their season's are all but over. Celtic are no strangers to Inverness in the Scottish Cup, and no strangers to being knocked out of the tournament by the famous Caley Jags. There has also been some close encounters in the Cup and with Inverness on a better run of form just now the Glasgow club would be right to not underestimate the size of the task facing them. Who can forget the daddy of them all, Feb 8th 2000, 1-3 at Parkhead in midweek after the postponement of the Saturday game due to high winds blowing some structures from the stands. We seemed to do better as a first division side in the Cup and repeated the feat under John Robertson three years later as Dennis Wyness scored the only goal of the game to send Celtic crashing out of the cup for a second time. http://news.bbc.co.u...and/9422742.stm It hasn't been all plain sailing for Inverness though and Celtic have twice come from behind in Inverness to dump us out of the cup, both games finishing 2-1 to Celtic. A particularly hard one to take was in 2007 when Graeme Bayne had put Inverness ahead in the 18th minute and we looked like putting Celtic out once more. However, much to our disdain, two very very late goals from Steven Pressley and Kenny Miller saw Celtic into the next round. In the 89th minute Pressley's goal had looked like taking the tie to a replay in Glasgow, that was before Scotland international Miller rifled in a twenty yarder to stun the home support. 7119 fans were at that game, but it looks as though apathy has set in and we will do well to match that now. Anyway, let's get up to date, nostalgia ain't what it used to be. Inverness are on an unbeaten run of seven games which has eased relegation fears and things were looking brighter, but another spate of injuries has seen the gloss taken off the mini revival. Celtic are in imperious form. The last Scottish side to beat them was Heart's 22 games ago. They have lost only once since then and that was to Athletico Madrid, so we would be in good company if we can achieve a result on Saturday. During that run, Celtic have defeated Inverness 2-0 in the Highlands, although that scoreline maybe flattered them slightly as Inverness were reduced to ten men when Greg Tansey was controversially sent off for an alleged elbow on Samaras. The overall statistics show that Celtic should be emphatic favourites to progress to the sixth round. Since 2002, Celtic have won 8 with Inverness only winning 3 and 3 games have ended in draws. One of those home wins was the cup game in 2003, the other two were both 3-2 victories, the last one being crucial to the outcome of the SPL title, so I suppose Celtic will be out to avenge that. Celtic have a 22-14 goal advantage at Inverness, averaging 1.57 per game and Inverness at 1.0; so if we can stop Celtic scoring 0.57 of a goal, then it will be a replay in Glasgow. After going 21 league games without a clean sheet, Inverness have now had 3 in a row. January Sales brought new faces to both clubs. Inverness brought in Claude Gnakpa and Sam Winnall at the expense of midfielder Lee Cox who has departed to Paolo Di Canio's Swindon Town. The two new boys made cameo appearances last weekend and Gnakpa looks like an exciting prospect and was unlucky not to score against St Mirren. A bonus for Inverness fans is that Jonny Hayes has survived another transfer window, but for how much longer can Inverness hold on to their prize asset? Celtic have loaned in Polish striker Pawel Brozek from Trabzonspor. The 28 year old has scored eight times in thirty-two international appearances for Poland. Efrain Juarez has returned to Celtic after being on loan at Real Zaragoza for the season. 20 year old Nigerian winger Rabiu Ibrahim has signed on for three years and hopes to make an impact at Parkhead. Mikael Lustig also signed on for over three years and the big defender claims his decision to move to Celtic was influenced by none other than Henrik Larsson. ***Latest Team News*** Inverness have a number of long term injuries to contend with. Hogg, Golobart and Shinnie have all but ended their seasons. Tudur-Jones and Doran both played in a bounce game in midweek with contrasting fortunes. Doran has pulled a hamstring and this will set him back even more, but Jones played for an hour without any cause for concern, although this game comes too soon for him. On the brighter side, Steve Williams could recover, he missed last weeks game against St Miren with a knee injury but Billy McKay is reported to be struggling to be fit. Terry Butcher has to decide which of his two shot stoppers he fits between the sticks. Esson has been number one all season, but Jonny Tuffey normally gets the nod for cup games. Meekings and Gillet are claiming the full back slots and Proctor and Tokely should pair up for the centre back positions should Steve Williams not recover in time. Foran and Tansey will do the dirty work and Hayes and Gnakpa would give us options on either wing. That leaves, Ross, Sutherland, Tade, Morrison and Winnall battling it out for the other two positions, tough choices ahead for Butcher. Celtic have Beram Kayal out injured and Sierra Leone striker Mohamed Bangura is set to miss another three months after further damaging his knee during training. Unfortunately cumbersome Daniel Majstorovic could still be out suffering after fracturing his cheekbone against St Johnstone before Xmas, although he will be named in the squad. Neil Lennon has much greater resources to call upon and these setbacks are a drop in the ocean to Celtic. The return of Izaguirre is a boost for Celtic as the little Honduran can be effective if given too much space. tm4tj Prediction:- This is a really tough game for Inverness. More injuries are hampering our season and games don't come much tougher than this. Celtic are sitting on top of the SPL some 33 points above Inverness. It would take a brave man to forecast anything but a Celtic victory, but it's the cup and I'll go for an honourable draw taking the game to a replay.