alternative maryhill

Needs more graphs.

Absolutely. Generic phrases like 'have been linked' and 'reports suggest' could simply mean 'ICT supporter in Edinburgh sitting bored at work opens Twitter and thinks, 'time for a spot of fishing...'' Re. your second question, Storey would at least provide pace, a decent finish and the ability to play off the last man; he'd be different to what we have, and would certainly improve the squad. I'm not sure if he's the sort of player that would function all that well as part of a partnership, though - he never showed the ability of, say, Mckay to play with his back to goal and hold the ball up, while also being a prolific finisher in his own right. Those sorts of players are pretty hard to get hold of, though.

Greeny just for this phrase, which I think would be an excellent choice of under-badge motto on next season's strip.

It's hard to argue that he's doing a good job at the moment when the same tactical limitations seem to be on show every week, but it's far too early to know whether or not he has the managerial attributes to change that. A few weeks away from competitive games, a bit of a rethink, possibly a slight reshuffle in personnel (although we'll be pretty limited in what we can do in this respect, I guess) and maybe we'll see an upturn in results and performances after the break. Ultimately the board will make the decision about whether they think it's worth the sacrifice of paying him off in the hope that it will save the club from relegation, but personally I think it would be pretty unjust to profess belief in an untried manager and then write him off as a failure after six months in charge.

Definitely this. I thought that taking Vigurs out of the deeper-lying role where Foran was playing him for a long time would make a difference in this respect, and we did look more solid against Hamilton and especially against Rangers, but it doesn't seem to have worked today. I'd like to see Polworth Tansey and Draper starting in the middle, for the greater energy and adaptibility that they give - any one of the three could play in a more advanced role at different times in the game while the other two stay deep. I just don't think Vigurs gives us enough, regardless of where he's playing. Regarding the goal-scoring figures, we need to remember that they are skewed by the Cafu-like exploits of Mr Tremarco... ;)

Pretty much agree with all you've said, and, like you, I wonder if Foran could do with someone other than Brian Rice as his no 2, as Rice certainly didn't seem to inspire particularly inventive or adaptable football after he replaced Latapy, and we are certainly in need of an alternative to the way we are playing just now. The bit in bold, though: it's true that we've retained the core of defence and midfield that won us the cup, but the forward line is completely different, and that makes a colossal difference; easily, potentially, the difference between top 6 and going down. I'd go as far as to say that think we have the poorest striking options, relative to our level, that we've had in my 20 years of watching the team. Also, I think there has been a fairly notable decline in the form of Gary Warren in particular, so although the defence might contain largely the same personnel as the cup-winning team, it's not quite the 'same' defence in terms of reliability.

Really frustrating to come away without anything there. We looked stronger at the back than we have in ages - Meekings was superb and Mckay again showed that he has been an excellent signing - and we pressed the ball really well further up the park; Tansey and Doumbouya deserve particular praise in this regard. Cole also had probably his best game for us to date - nominally starting on the left of a three behind Doumbouya, he actually played a bit of a free role and looked far more willing take players on than he has in previous games. The drawback of the line-up and tactics we adopted was that we were very short of pace up front, and, especially with Doumbouya dropping back to support so much, we lacked anyone overlapping or taking the ball on. The chances we created - and there were more than there have have been for a while - were mostly created through sheer hard graft, forcing Rangers back by degrees. The fact that we weren't able to take any of them points to a fundamental weakness in the current squad that will probably see us struggling all season, even if we can turn in performances as impressive as this on a consistent basis. Then again, six points against Motherwell and County and we could be back in the top six for the start of 2017. Funny league this year. Merry Christmas btw, CTO folks.

Sorry, Caleyd.

Surely got to be RiG. Don't think he's missed a game home or away this season.

Isn't he injured just now? ETA - I agree, btw, that he has looked the least impressive of Foran's signings - obviously Foran must have seen something that we haven't seen yet, but so far he hasn't shown either the mobility or the presence that our previously-successful strikers have tended to have one of. Would be very surprised to see him written off so soon when he's on a three-year deal though

Hamilton are a poorer team than St Johnstone, but that was still a big improvement on last week. Vigurs played ahead of Draper in an advanced midfield role and looked more effective than he has in weeks, and the defence looked stronger and quicker to cover with McKay in there and Meekings restored to his rightful position. We also created far more chances this week, and were a bit unlucky not to take a couple more of them. Good to see Cole score, as last week and, until scoring yesterday, he showed flashes of skill but hadn't really posed much threat. Hopefully the goal will give him confidence to push on. Normally I'd say OFW should have done better with the goal, but given the back problem he was playing through, he probably gets a pass for that. Don't think the game was quite as one-sided as some people are making out though: it was fairly even up until Hamilton scored, after which we started to dominate; the first 20-25 mins of the second half we were clearly the better team too, but Hamilton came right back into it in the closing stages and looked quite threatening. Probably a quite decent game overall, although I rarely really think about that as I mentally pinball between hope, fear and frustration over the 90 mins.

No; all the things you mention are certainly big contributory factors. I just think that the selection of Vigurs in that role for much of the season, when there have been alternatives, has been a mistake, and that (without trying to rubbish Vigurs as a player or Foran as a manager) it has been probably the most needless and avoidable of the various factors in our dodgy defending. Ironically, I probably would leave Vigurs in there on Saturday, as we are down to the bare bones; as bdu98196 points out, Tremarco has been just about our best player this season in his natural position, and has weighed in with a few goals too, so it might take it away more than it adds if we move him into the middle, although I think he could do a job there.

Tansey has been taking a lot of stick recently, but I don't really think looked like he lacked commitment on Saturday - he made himself available for the ball (noticably more than some others), tried to take charge of building from the back, made a few runs forward and tracked back better than Vigurs. He didn't always use the ball that well though - there were a few overhit long balls and a couple of times going forward he tried to hang onto it too long, as if to work a better opportunity for himself that wasn't going to come. I'm not sure that's a lack of commitment, but his game might well have been affected by frustration or nerves, especially after we'd lost the first goal. Vigurs is a different matter, but I don't entirely blame him either, in that we knew what we were getting with Vigurs when we signed him. County supporters and Motherwell supporters tended to be divided on him, precisely because, for all his vision and his ability with a dead ball, he simply didn't work hard enough. He never really established himself in the Motherwell first team for that reason. Personally, I wouldn't have him in the first team at all if we had a full-strength squad, and I certainly wouldn't use him in a deep-lying midfield role, where he will regularly be expected to track his opponents, put in decisive tackles and provide defensive cover and reinforcement, except as a very last resort. Saturday probably was that, but Foran has used him in that role for almost the whole season, and it absolutely baffles me. I've said before, probably in this thread, that I think that that tactic is probably more responsible for our dreadful defensive record than Warren's lack of form, and the two may well related to some extent anyway. Until Polworth is fit again, though, we probably don't have any option but to continue with Vigurs in there, but once we have more players available, I hope Foran at least tries going with something and someone else. We can talk about giving Vigurs a rocket to try to get him to work harder, but I'm just not sure he has it within himself.

If you're going to go down the overblown Scottish songs route (which, personally, I wouldn't), then Waterfront would surely be more appropriate? How about 'The Little Shop of Horrors'?

Warren has looked shaky this season, but he hasn't been helped by having a player who can't tackle and who has no pace - Iain Vigurs - playing ahead of him in deep midfield all season. I understand the thinking behind playing Draper further forward earlier this season, but why on earth Vigurs has consistently been preferred to Polworth in the centre when both have been available is completely beyond me and is, imho, probably the most significant factor in using having the worst defensive record in the league. It was shown again with the opener today, when Craig seemed able to just stroll onto the ball, completely untroubled. I'll defend Tansey to some extent against the criticism he's getting - I thought he put in a decent shift today, although he did misplace a few passes and overhit a couple of balls. Also, he, and Cole, and King, all seemed absolutely incapable of getting off a shot today: in the period from about 25-40 minutes where we had most of the possession, we did play some OK stuff, but whenever we got to about 20-25 yards out, whoever was on the ball just seemed to want to move it across the front of the Saints defence rather than trying to work an opening or testing the goalkeeper. It's possible, I suppose, that Foran had told then to try to get in closer rather than firing off the sort of speculative 35-yarders that we saw last week, but it felt like almost the opposite extreme today. Obviously we have been pretty unlucky again with injuries recently, but given the lack of penetration we have up front, the lack of dig and pace we have in midfield, and our woeful defensive record, there's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be among the favourites to go down.

This one doesn't. We dominated possession and did move the ball around well in the first half in particular, but I don't remember us giving Scott Bain much to do at all. There were too many shots from distance, and while Doumbouya works hard, having him as our only outlet is damaging us. We're crying out for a small, mobile striker in the vein of Mckay or Dargo. We also looked soft at the back, particularly on the right hand side, where Horner just does not look like a defender. The best performance I've seen this season , fwiw, was the second half at Fir Park; we were nowhere near that yesterday. Good having the opportunity for a chat with Bobby Mann in the Trades before the game though.

Done. Worthwhile cause.

The Barrowman Travesty, probably. Which was closely preceded by The Niculae Farrago.

Agree entirely with the three posts on this topic so far. Also, kudos to RiG for giving Robert Ludlum the name of his next novel in the title to this thread.

That was a surprisingly poor display after a few weeks of really disciplined and positive performances. Obviously it's unrealistic to expect the same level of performance in every game, but after a reasonably bright start, we lost any hold we had on the game and spent the rest of the first half, and parts of the second, just clinging on. With better finishing, Accies probably could have been three up at half time. I was surprised to see Mulraney dropped and Vigurs brought back into the middle of the park, altering a team that had just produced our best performance of the season, and although Vigurs, as usual, looked neat and tidy, it did seem that we were missing Polworth's energy and ability to close players down more quickly than Vigurs in the middle, and missing Mulraney's pace in the wide areas. When Mulraney was finally brought on, and then switched to the right after initially being played down the left, he produced our most incisive attacking moment up to that point by knocking the ball past Darian MacKinnon and tearing past him to get to the bye-line and fire over a cross which went behind, probably because he was fouled as he made it. From the resulting free kick, we had our best chance of the match, as Draper's downward header was saved brilliantly by the Hamilton sub keeper. With all of our strikers essentially being target men, we need much more of the sort of play that Mulraney produced here, and surely there is a strong case to be made for starting him on the right so he doesn't have to keep cutting inside. At least, however, the equaliser was a thing of beauty, with Polworth picking up possession maybe twenty five yards out, making space for himself and turning onto a low drive which flew in to the bottom corner. The fact that he has this sort of shot in his locker is also, perhaps, another argument for playing him through the middle instead of out wide. Great in the end to get a point that we didn't really deserve, and maybe it's no bad thing thing if we can produce a strong reaction to this performance in our next game, with players like King and Mckay, who were much less effective today than in recent matches, hopefully upping their games again. A wee repeat of the December 2006 evening game against Rangers would do me fine; we do seem to be making a habit of last-minute goals this season, after all. As for the aggro after the game, it was obvious that the Hamilton young team and our young boys were winding each other up throughout the game, but we only saw the tail end of what happened afterwards, so no idea who started what outside. There is a group of absolute wee welts who follow Accies, however, that we've seen noising people up and fighting among themselves at previous games, so it's no real surprise that if this sort of thing was going to happen, it would happen there.

My impression is that Rodgers sees - or certainly saw - something in him: he was used a lot in pre-season, and started the first European game, in Gibraltar. By most accounts, though, he was noticeably poor in a very poor team performance - maybe partly nerves and partly being used in a position, coming in off wide left, that's not his best. That probably didn't help his chances, but nevertheless, although he's been on and off the bench since, there was no talk of him going on loan in August, whereas apparently Mackay-Steven and Armstrong would both have been encouraged to go had the deals been right. The biggest problem he's got, as people have pointed out, is that he's competing for places in the area where Celtic are by far at their strongest. Rodgers obviously was under pressure to deliver results and impressive-looking signings straight away, and went for Sinclair, who justified his faith immediately and is an obvious starter given the level he's played at; Rogic is a bit ahead of Christie in terms of time spent with the squad and Celtic first-team games, and he's looked very comfortable in the number 10 role; and players who might have been expected to leave, like Forrest and, apparently, in the last month, Armstrong especially, seem to have had a new lease of life under Rodgers. Rodgers is on record as having said that since the Armstrong loan deal fell through, he's realised that Armstrong's best position is as a number 10; this is potentially bad news for Christie, as he's now got at least two direct competitors for his best position. Things move fast in football, so having been in the plans in August, it may be that come January, he will be advised to go on loan - and he should probably go. BTW, while I think he's easily talented enough to make it at that level in the longer term, I'm not sure if the English Championship in the second half of the season would be the best place for a player who is still quite young and lacking competitive match practice - the pressure could be absolutely enormous if he's at a team at either end of the division, and it might not do his confidence any good if things don't go well. If they are facing competition at the top of the Scottish Championship, however, I could see possibly see Hibs going for him, given the Lennon-Celtic connection; a step down, for sure, but it would potentially keep his profile high in Scotland and allow him, potentially, to be a player who makes the difference. Whatever happens, I really, really hope that before the end of this season, he's back playing regularly somewhere - it would be awful if such a talent was allowed to dwindle.

That was a lovely surprise. As expected, we competed really well in the middle but struggled with Celtic's pace and trickery in the wide areas. So crucial that we didn't let the heads go down the way Sevco did last week, especially after the Draper decision, and fought until the very last minute. Obviously we got a bit lucky with a few shots off the woodwork, and Fon Williams was outstanding, but some of the last ditch defending was superb, and Foran got his subs spot on - Doran, Mulraney and of course Fisher all caused a few problems when we did manage to get forward. 5 points from 3 games against St Johnstone, Aberdeen and Celtic is good at any time, but after the start we'd made to the season, and with a rookie manager, it's a great achievement. Looking forward to going into work tomorrow as the only ICT supporter among around 1000 Celtic supporters and giving them a good GIRUY. :)

There are still clear weaknesses in their defence, but I think they are much, much better than they were last season from middle to front. Sinclair has started on fire, is fast and tricky with an eye for goal and has experience of playing at a much higher level than most recent Celtic signings; now that he's had a couple of games, Dembele looks like he'll be very difficult to play against; Rogic is clever and strong in the number 10 role, we know about Roberts from last year, Brown is right back on form, Armstrong is looking like his old self, even Forrest is looking half-decent. I think we have a better defence than Rangers, but it will take a heroic performance to keep that sort of attacking prowess out, and while I think that their defence is beatable, we've looked very limited up front so far this season. I agree with bdu98196 that the central midfield will be key to stopping Celtic playing and trying to prevent them getting into a rhythm, but while I would keep Vigurs in there, I worry that although he's experienced and reasonably strong, he doesn't have the pace or the presence to dominate in there and is brushed aside too easily - witness the build up to Aberdeen's goal last week. Draper is obviously far more effective at that sort of role, but I suspect he is going to have to run himself into the ground, because he's also been one of our few attacking threats and will probably have to perform a sort of box-to-box role. For all Vigurs' threat from set pieces, then if we start the same team as last week and find ourselves a couple down, I'd be looking at taking Vigurs off, pulling the harder-working Polworth into deep midfield and hoping that a Mulraney or a Doran might manage to get in behind the Celtic defence. As you can probably tell from all this, I expect to see us comfortably beaten, but as long as we get a reaction against Dundee the following weekend, then I'm not too bothered - this season, unlike the last few no-one will be in touch with Celtic by Christmas, imho.

I don't think this is entirely fair - people who abuse their authority don't deserve to be respected, and what I saw on Saturday looked very like stewards exceeding the boundaries of their remit, especially the ones who dived pretty aggressively into the group of supporters at the front. The other stuff you mentioned seeing, the stuff after the game, is a different matter, obviously. As for all this whataboutery about who are the 'better' supporters...

Fair report, I think. Mckay had a good debut - I hadn't realised he could play RB as well as CH, sensible signing from Foran - and Tremarco also played well. Agree about Vigurs too - before he pinged in that fantastic shot, I was screaming for Foran to hook him after his umpteenth misplaced forward pass; sometimes it looked like he wasn't even looking up before passing. He does have that ability pull a goal out of nowhere though, and in a team that still looks like it's going to struggle to create and score many chances, that is a valuable asset. The most encouraging thing for me was the way we competed throughout and never let Aberdeen get control of the game: having been at the Partick, County, Alloa and Hearts games, but not the St Johnstone one, I was worried by how uncharacteristically meek and off the pace we looked, but yesterday we were pretty commanding in the centre of the park and closed down well. Although I would never boo him myself, I don't think the Shinnie booing was terribly serious, and the 'You're just a **** Carl Tremarco' made me laugh. The other stuff you mention is poor though: the stewards were ridiculously OTT after the equaliser, which just succeeded in winding up the supporters, but that doesn't justify it, and it's not something I've seen before; hopefully it doesn't start creeping in, as I do like the fact that we can, at almost every away game, go into the same pubs and mingle with opposing supporters without any bother.