Defence cuts weigh heavily on Inverness back four.
Inverness head for Paisley this weekend to take on perennial basement strugglers St Mirren at St Mirren Park. The men from the North will be without the backbone of their defence as Tokely and Munro are suspended. I'm sure the Saints fans will be disappointed at Tokely's enforced absence, and with Gillet still nowhere to be seen and Proctor just back from injury, it will be a new partnership that will hope to halt a rejuvenated Craig Dargo after his two cup goals saw the Saints ease past Ayr United in the cup.
Inverness will have to throw the two Chris' together which will leave us with a rather inexperienced back line in regards to partnerships, with young Graeme Shinnie being the elder statesman in terms of matches played for ICT. Dani Sanchez will definitely miss out after breaking three bones in his hand against Morton with a nasty looking injury. You have to feel for Dani as he was just getting to grips with the Inverness game after overcoming a series of injuries which kept his time on the park to a minimum in the first half of the season. He has had his hand screwed back together after an operation on Sunday. The former Real Murcia player was beginning to show his class with late shows in the cup games.
Terry Butcher was making a meal of things earlier this week as he helped to launch a competition for fans to create a new strip and win themselves a trip to Italy to the Errea factory where the strips are produced. He looked fair dapper with his chef's bunnet on as he poked a pizza into the oven on the end of his giant spade, complete with his choice of toppings. It looked more like Game for a Laugh as Terry was caught on camera making a Pizza for the press shoot and it would have been no surprise had Jeremy Beadle popped up to taunt him. Another man who had plenty publicity this last week was our very own Adam Rooney as his *millenium miss against Morton received it's fair share of air time and will be high on the you tube hit list. However, Adam was game for a laugh as well and shrugged it off. Honestly, it will go away in time Adam; just not as soon as you would like.
But, Chef Terry Butcher has bigger fish to fry, and Alternative Maryhill will serve you up the main course with his preview after you have been given a taste of what's to come with the above starter. Enjoy.
Will Inverness halt winless pattern in Paisley?
On Saturday HMS Sneck sets out for the River Clyde once more. Instead, however, of sailing straight on into the dark heart of paranoia central, this time it will take a sharp right shortly after Erskine down a little tributary called the White Cart, and drop anchor in Scotland’s largest town, Paisley.
Paisley gets an unfair press. To hear some people talk, you would be forgiven for thinking that life there consists of tumbleweeds of blackened tinfoil drifting down deserted concrete precincts. In fact, what you will find when you visit is one of Britain’s finest Victorian town centres, and a place that has made a sizeable contribution to world culture. Paisley has given us, among others, the recently-departed Gerry Rafferty, impish scatman Paolo Nutini, Doctor Who in his tenth incarnation, Robert Tannahill and several other important weaver poets, and one of the finest Scottish playwrights of the last fifty years in John Byrne, now resident in Nairn. Novelist Christopher Brookmyre is from nearby Barrhead but as a St Mirren supporter can claim honorary ‘buddie’ status; anyone who can sneak a jobby onto a mantelpiece in the first chapter of his first novel is worthy of further investigation. As the centre of the Scottish textile industry, Paisley also gave its name to the Paisley pattern, which has adorned shirts, ties, pyjamas and y-fronts worldwide for over two centuries, and this in turn gave its name to one of the most underrated American musical movements, the Paisley Underground, which included bands such as The Long Ryders, The Dream Syndicate and even The Bangles, before they went all Eternal Flame on our asses. In recent years, however, Paisley has known tough times, thanks mainly to the arrival of a monstrous tin shopping centre, Braehead, a few miles to the east, where I had the misfortune to work for several years. Braehead has been blamed for vampirically sucking the life out of Paisley, and while this may be an exaggeration, it is a still a depressing development that has found a mirror to some extent in football in the area.
Until recently, a St Mirren away game was synonymous with a trip to Love Street, a venue of such international renown that it lent its name to a song by The Doors and brothels from Amsterdam to Bangkok and all points in between. Love Street was one of the finest of Scottish grounds, only ten minutes’ walk from Gilmour Street station with a stonking football boozer, The Wee Barrel, en route. The most memorable of many pre-matches spent in there was the weekend after Caley Thistle’s famous cup win at Celtic Park, when the ICT supporters were welcomed like conquering heroes and then saw their profoundly hungover team get thoroughly horsewhipped on the park by St Mirren: two-nil going on five. In 2007, however, St Mirren sold the Love Street ground to the scourge of Inverness, Tesco, and in January 2009, the club moved a new purpose built ground in Greenhill Road, near to where the club had played in the late nineteenth century. Today’s St Mirren Park is a perfectly decent, tight little stadium and, with Paisley St James station less than two minutes away, it couldn’t be more convenient for those of us coming through from Glasgow. This does make it very tempting, though, to simply hop on the 14.35 from Glasgow and then straight back onto the train after the final whistle. A few of the ICT Away crowd have continued to make the pilgrimage from Gilmour Street via the Alamo, but the less energetic among us have just gone for the easy option, and recent trips to Paisley have lost a little something as a result.
St Mirren have a long and admirable history in Scottish football, with three Scottish Cup wins, four European campaigns and several top half finishes in the top flight. Over the past dozen years, however, they have spent almost equal amounts of time in the first division and the SPL, which means that they have been direct rivals of ICT for much of that period. Since their last promotion to the SPL, in season 2005-06, they have finished either tenth or eleventh in each of the last four seasons: unspectacular, but reasonably respectable for a club, like Caley Thistle, operating on a very limited budget and with less appeal for players than the bigger city clubs. Nevertheless, at the end of season 2009-10, St Mirren decided to part company with Gus McPherson, the manager that had got them promoted, kept them up and taken them to the CIS Cup Final, and this was a decision that continues to divide supporters. The team is now managed by a man whom the old firm-centric media would probably regard as the lesser of two Lennons, but Danny Lennon knows that that is not the case. Danny Lennon has had to make substantial changes to the St Mirren team, signing around eighteen players since moving from Cowdenbeath, and Danny Lennon knows that it will be a gradual process, but Danny Lennon has already won many St Mirren supporters’ confidence through Danny Lennon’s reassuring habit of referring to Danny Lennon in the third person and Danny Lennon’s rebuilding process currently has Danny Lennon’s new-look St Mirren sitting in... eleventh. Danny Lennon also has a fine line in waistcoats.
Past fixtures
There are few sides that ICT have played more than St Mirren in the sixteen and half years of our existence. The teams have met thirty-four times in competitive matches: once in the Challenge Cup, once in the Scottish Cup, twice in the CIS Cup and thirty times in the league. ICT have won all the cup ties, but the league record is closer: ICT have won thirteen games, St Mirren nine and eight have been drawn. If the league statistics are limited to games played in the SPL, however, then the picture looks better for St Mirren – they have won six to ICT’s five, with three having been drawn. The clubs didn’t actually meet competitively until the start of season 1999-2000 but by some quirk of fortune then found themselves playing each other three times in eleven days: once in the Challenge Cup, once in the CIS Cup and then once in the league. ICT’s annus mirabilis against the Paisley Saints was 2002-03 when ICT won all five games, scoring eighteen times to St Mirren’s four. Glancing at the Caley Thistle goalscorers from that season is a reminder of what a fine team Steve Paterson had built: Richie Hart and Barry Robson each scored three times in those fixtures, Paul Ritchie scored four and Dennis Wyness five. Little wonder St Mirren would later go on to sign Dennis. He did very little in his time in Paisley, but will go down in history as the first St Mirren player to score at the new Greenhill Road stadium.
Perhaps the most exciting period in the rivalry between the clubs was the climax to season 2008-09. Under the management of Craig Brewster, ICT had lost the season’s first two games against Saints on their way to the bottom of the league, but by the time Gus McPherson took his team north on April 4th, Caley Thistle were a team transformed under Terry Butcher. The second St Mirren fixture had been the third game in a sequence of seven straight league defeats; the third was to be the club’s fifth win in nine games, with Filipe Morais scoring twice in a 2-1 win and taking Caley Thistle above St Mirren and into ninth place in the table. Inverness supporters left the game increasingly confident that the team would avoid the relegation that had seemed inevitable three months previously, and this confidence seemed justified when ICT beat St Mirren by the same scoreline on their own turf just four weeks later. St Mirren supporters must have felt that their team had salvaged something when Jim Hamilton equalised Grant Munro’s early opener in the seventieth minute, but with only seven minutes left, after Saints had failed to clear a corner, Ross Tokely pounced on the loose ball and smashed home the winner. The subsequent scenes of celebration, in the stands, on the platform at Paisley St James, on the train and coming through Glasgow Central, rank among my favourite memories of that season. Of course, as we all know, St Mirren had the last laugh: Caley Thistle failed to win any of their four remaining games and two draws and two defeats saw the Inverness side relegated on a goal difference just two worse than that of their nearest rivals. And who were those rivals? Who else...
Current Form and Team News
A casual glance at the SPL table for February 11th would suggest that Caley Thistle should go into this fixture as comfortable favourites, with six places and eleven points separating the sides. Yet previous results between the teams this season suggest the rivalry is as keen as ever, with each recording a 2-1 away victory, and recent league form also fails to split the sides, with each having taken only two points from their last six games.
ICT have had to rely recently on a fine start to the season and a disrupted fixture list for the sides beneath them to prevent them sliding down the table during a run of ten league games without victory. It is surely no coincidence that this run has occurred during the absence of Jonny Hayes, easily Caley Thistle’s most effective player in the first half of the season. Unfortunately Hayes will again be missing after a brief comeback, and Terry Butcher will also be without Dani Sanchez, who had added some much-needed creativity to the team after recently breaking back into the side. With Grant Munro and Ross Tokely also absent through suspension, the Inverness manager appears to have limited options when deciding his line-up. Yet Saturday’s 5-1 cup victory over Morton has inspired a new optimism among Caley Thistle supporters, particularly the promising performances of transfer window signings Aaron Doran and Chris Hogg and a display of clinical finishing from Adam Rooney and Richie Foran, playing as a front partnership for one of the first times this season. Doran and Hogg are certain to keep their places for this weekend’s game: what remains to be seen is whether Terry Butcher will persist with an out-and-out front two, or whether Adam Rooney will revert to playing more as a lone striker, supported by one of Odhiambo, Foran or recent loan signing from Burnley, Alex McDonald, with another of those three employed on the opposite wing to Doran. Central midfield is also an area where Terry Butcher has to make decisions: Nick Ross may miss out through injury, which means Lee Cox, Russell Duncan, Stuart Duff and David Proctor will be in competition for two places. At the same time, with Ross Tokely suspended, Duff and Proctor are also likely to be competing for the right back role. Confused much yet?
Much has been made this season of the number of changes Danny Lennon has made to the St Mirren squad and the fact that he raided his former club Cowdenbeath for a number of his news signings, but recent line-ups have included plenty of SPL experience. For example, the back four against Ayr on Saturday contained three vastly experienced players, David van Zanten, Lee Mair and John Potter, alongside summer signing Darren McGregor. That said, experience does not always equate with reliability, and at times against Ayr the Saints’ defence looked very unsure of itself. Going forward, on the other hand, St Mirren looked like a side that could cause ICT problems. Winger Paul McGowan, on loan from Celtic, was fast, tricky and prepared to take defenders on; more impressive still was the performance of former Caley Thistle striker Craig Dargo, who scored with a beautiful curling finish from eighteen yards, then rounded the goalkeeper and dribbled past two Ayr defenders to score a second goal that was ultimately the difference between the teams. Dargo has had a terrible time with injuries since moving south, but the quality that made him such a favourite in Inverness is clearly still there, and assuming the injury curse hasn’t struck again, he will surely be in the starting line-up to face Caley Thistle and can be expected to make the afternoon difficult for Chris Hogg and Chris Innes. Among the absentees for St Mirren will be Jim Goodwin, who is suspended, and forward Gareth Wardlaw, impressive in the first game between the teams this season, who has an ankle injury. Midfielder Paddy Cregg missed the Ayr game with a hamstring problem and may be a doubt for Saturday, while defender David Barron and midfielder Nick Hegarty have both been out for some time and although nearing fitness are also unlikely to return.
Prediction
As the history of the fixture above has shown, this is always a difficult result to call, and the recent poor form of the clubs makes it even more so. St Mirren will take confidence from their win in Inverness seven weeks ago, yet after a recent defeat to Hibernian, their proximity to bottom club Hamilton will also surely be preying on their minds. Caley Thistle cannot take much encouragement from recent league results, but there is likely to be a new buoyancy about the dressing room after the impressive cup win against Morton and with the addition of new players of obvious quality. With two potentially vulnerable defences, and front players on either side that look capable of causing problems, I can foresee an unusually high-scoring game for a fixture between these teams.
St Mirren 2 – Inverness Caledonian Thistle 3
Makeshift defence offers Saints a share of the points. Inverness led twice in this game but were pegged back by a battling St Mirren and both sides settled for a point each after Ryan Esson produced a dramatic late point blank save to deny the Saints all three points. Adam Rooney got back on the SPL goal trail with a brace and Aaron Doran scored his first for the club, but goals from Higdon (pen), Thomson and McGregor meant a deserved draw for the homesters. Inverness were down to the bare bones for this encounter due to injuries and suspensions and the back four looked like they had just met for the first time on the team bus down to Paisley. Liam Polwarth was drafted into the squad as Butcher struggled to muster enough fit and able bodies to fill the spaces. With Munro and Tokely suspended, the news that Hayes starting was welcomed by the Caley Jags support, but with Ross, Shinnie, Gillet, Sanchez, McBain, Golabeck and Morrison out it meant that Butcher had few options open to him. 12th February 2011 St Mirren Park, Paisley ST MIRREN 3 - Higdon (28pen), Thomson (29), McGregor (74) TEAM: Gallacher, McAusland, Mair (Travner 46), Potter, van Zanten,Thomson, Murray (Lynch 83), McGregor, McGowan, Dargo, Higdon SUBS: Samson, McCluskey, Mooy, Lamont, McLean - Booked: McGowan (43), Dargo (90) INVERNESS CT 3 - Rooney (6, 61), Doran (33) TEAM: Esson, Proctor, Innes, Hogg, Duff, Duncan, Doran,Cox, Hayes (Odhiambo 25), Rooney, Foran SUBS: Tuffey, Sutherland, MacDonald, Polworth - Booked: Doran (59) Referee Bobby Madden Attendance 3203 A full match report for this game will follow once the reporter gets his breath back .........................It was a long breath, but here it is cowboys. Remember the Alamo? Vaguely… Greetings, y’all. I’m here to tell you a tale of an epic battle between the knights of the north and the bandits of the deep south. No quarter asked, none given. So abandon your steers, tie up your horses, pull over a tin of pork and beans and a sarsaparilla, and sit back.… A watery sun was breaking through when the central belt posse stepped off the half noon wagon-train from Glasgow and into the one-horse town of Paisley. Cactus Stan, Top Six Gun Nic, the MacInnes brothers and One-Draw Young had only one place in their sights as they swaggered down the main drag: a shady saloon known as the Alamo. Inside, several mean-looking hombres were ranged round the bar: Govan Jaggie, Capital Caley, The Immortal Howden Ender, ITN Jnr, mother-and-son team Carol and Cammy, and Red Card Reilly, nursing his very own ring of fire after a midnight munchie box. A few native injuns skulked in the darker corners, but we paid them no mind: we only had eyes for the tray of cow pies and the malt liquors being served by the barkeeps, a striking lady of middle years who had the whip-hand, and an ageing gunslinger with a mighty original nose. As the ale kept flowing and the old northern songs started up around the barrelhouse piano, the footsoldiers of the northern army arrived in greater and greater numbers: a lean, hawk-eyed enigma known only as McCloud; a man named GMD, a stranger to me; several wild-eyed, well-refreshed young bucks wrapped in flags and walking wavy; and finally, with the moment of battle fast approaching, brooding cynic The Knowledge, hot-blooded bare-knuckle specialist Harry Chibber and a shifty, mescan-looking dude known as San Miguel. Three o’clock was almost upon us and we had to leave the Alamo and make for the field of battle. We knew that some of us would not last long; we knew that others would end up in the county gaol; but we knew there was no turning back. As the Alamo faded into the dust behind us, however, a curious thing happened: One-Draw Young’s spurs and stetson fell away, and that ponderous ass hole Alternative Maryhill re-emerged.................and here is his tale There were a couple of surprises in the ICT starting line-up. Graham Shinnie was injured, which meant that David Proctor started the game in the unfamiliar position of left back, with Stuart Duff on the right. And despite being widely rumored to be unavailable through injury, Jonny Hayes began on the right wing. Terry Butcher decided to stick with the formation that had won so stylishly against Morton, which meant that Lee Cox and Russell Duncan anchored the midfield and Adam Rooney and Richie Foran played as a front two. The attacking nature of this line-up was reflected in the early of action of the match, with ICT going on the offensive from the first whistle. Their first move ended with Jonny Hayes’ opportunist shot from the edge of the penalty area, which Paul Gallacher collected comfortably. Just a minute later, Richie Foran had a chance from inside the box, hitting a shot first time from a dangerous low cross by Aaron Doran, but Gallacher again dealt with it easily. The Inverness team was looking lively and keen to play the ball on the ground, but when the first goal came, in five minutes, it was pure route one. Ryan Esson took a goal kick which was head-flicked on by Foran towards Adam Rooney on the left-hand edge of the penalty area. Rooney turned Darren McGregor beautifully and lifted the ball over the approaching Gallacher. A fine striker’s goal. Although play moved from end to end, for the next ten minutes or so ICT looked the more dangerous team with Jonny Hayes seeing plenty of the ball. After being caught with a heavy challenge, however, Hayes began limping badly and after another ten minutes or so, when it became clear that he could not run off the injury, he was taken off to be replaced by Eric Odhiambo. By that stage St Mirren had begun to impose themselves a little more and after a couple of tame long-range efforts, they had their first real chance on twenty-three minutes when Steven Thomson’s low shot from the right was parried across the face of his own goal by Ryan Esson and Hugh Murray hit the base of the post with the follow-up. Craig Dargo had been instrumental in starting that move off, and it was also he who created St Mirren’s equalizing goal. Latching on to a ball inside the box from the right, Dargo first took on Chris Hogg and then David Proctor. Hogg managed to avoid lunging in on the ex-ICT man, but Proctor, looking uncomfortable in the left back position, stuck out a foot slightly late. Dargo accepted the invitation, hit the floor and the resulting penalty was put away coolly by Michael Higdon. Uncertain defending again in the left back area led to St Mirren taking the lead just over a minute later. Odhiambo’s defensive header from a high ball into the ICT box was weak and the ball fell to Steven Thomson, unmarked outside the area. He headed the ball to Dargo who shielded it well then fed it back to Thomson, who had space and time to fire a fine shot into the top corner. In the aftermath of that goal, Caley Thistle looked unsteady with Dargo, at this point the best player on the park, firing in another shot that was blocked by Chris Hogg. Terry Butcher opted to switch the full backs and this decision was influential in Caley Thistle’s equalizer in thirty three minutes. Eric Odhiambo and Lee Cox combined well to pressurize the St Mirren defence after a long ball from Stuart Duff, and although the Saints managed to clear the danger temporarily, the ball only came as far as David Proctor, who threw a dangerous looping ball into the box. Adam Rooney seemed to get some sort of touch on it and as the ball bounced beyond Richie Foran, Aaron Doran came steaming in at the back post and fired it into the roof of the net. (This portion of the match report was brought to you by the miracle of BBC highlights: I was in the bog at the time.) Although both teams continued to try to play football and had about an even share of the possession, the first half saw little else in the way of clear cut chances. In the second half, however, St Mirren took control, with winger Paul McGowan, on loan from Celtic, particularly influential. McGowan’s willingness to take players on led to ICT conceding several free kicks and a succession of dangerous St Mirren balls into the area. The most dangerous moment for ICT came when Darren McGregor got on to Jure Travner’s inswinging corner and headed the ball against Ryan Esson’s crossbar. Richie Foran, attempting to clear, then caused a second round of loosened bowels among the travelling support by heading against the post. Just after the hour mark, Caley Thistle retook the lead against the run of play with an example of the sort of counter-attacking football that brought us so much success earlier in the season. A high clearance from Russell Duncan, after ICT had broken up another St Mirren attack, fell to the feet of Richie Foran. Foran turned away from his marker and sent a perfectly-weighted diagonal ball into the path of Adam Rooney, who out-paced the St Mirren defenders and slid the ball calmly beyond Gallacher and into the corner of the net. Bedlam in the away end: was this going to be our first league win in eleven? Sadly not. Twelve minutes later, St Mirren were level again. Paul McGowan once more made the difference, his tricky play in the right back area forcing David Proctor into conceding a corner. From Travner’s dangerous outswinging delivery, Darren McGregor powered an unstoppable header into the corner of Esson’s net. This was disappointing, but certainly no more than St Mirren deserved. As the game moved towards its conclusion, however, St Mirren almost won it from an identical move. Travner’s corner was again met by the head of McGregor, this time only five yards out, but somehow Ryan Esson managed to get his arms up to parry the ball back into play. Esson has been outstanding for ICT all season, but this was surely his finest moment yet. Full time 3-3 Although St Mirren were the stronger team in the second half, this was probably just about a fair result. The away support was buoyant leaving the ground and on the train back to Glasgow. Despite the early-season dreaming about top-four finishes and European places, ICT supporters are realistic and there was a great deal of appreciation for a battling draw, played in the right manner, with a very depleted squad and against a team that has a decent SPL record against us. If Hayes can recover fully and our defence is restored to full strength, we can be optimistic about picking up plenty more points this season; hopefully starting next week against the Saints of Perth. Well, I guess that’s all folks: there’s probably plenty more tales to be told, but this hombre fell off his horse pretty soon after returning to Glasgow and what became of the others I cannot say. Rest assured though, that we will all be saddling up again for Easter Road in two weeks time. Yee-hah.….............................. Superb account of yer day in the tumbleweed town and the ensuing battle Maryhill, and all this while the cattle ranchers from Dingwall were struggling to keep the wolves from the door against the Bino's. Looks like they need the cavalry to help out after the lynching of marshall McStay. Next weekend sees the Gunfight at the Tulloch Stadium when Perth come a callin, so don't be shy and mosey on down pilgrims. The Perth steer drivers are heading North in droves and we need to have a showdown before the hoedown at the Innes corral where we can all wet our whistles, so get off yer horse and drink yer guinness.
