CELTIC1CALEY3

Motherwell 5 Ross County 0 He was not seething last night but says he will talk to Uncle Roy today. Looks like his motivational record is not working as he admitted the County were basically 'Sh.....' He has basically brought in a stack of poor recruits in the transfer window. Hope we do not feel this way. Ross County manager Derek Adams: "The scoreline doesn't flatter Motherwell in any way. It is not good enough, the players are trying but the quality they had has not been good enough and that is why the scoreline was what it was. "We are in the same position now as when I took over and it is really difficult. From my point of view we have had opportunities to win games but we have not had enough quality to see it over the line."

It will be very interesting to see the mood after Wednesday's South Planning meeting. If the Councillors side with the Officials and turn the Battery Farm application down, the Clubs finances will not look good. If we survive the play off place - at the bottom end - the place money will be probably less than we budgetted. We do not know how much changing the football side of management has cost. We do know that Nathan and Cammy will have options next season. Duncan has a long commute. Next season looks very challenging as things stand. With so many loan players the question is where does the drive to succeed come from? The performance against Raith was good but they are on a poor run currently. Hibs play Celtic on Wednesday so we can but hope they are humped. They may feel aggrieved that Aberdeen beat them to the League Cup Final and therefore will be driven to beat an easy ICT side in the Scottish Cup. Hope Duncan can motivate his new squad to produce something special.

Yes, I did see that Scotty but thought it an unusual name.

Quite an amazing rotation. Some of our established players may now sign pre contracts with other clubs whilst other longstanding players may not be offered extensions. Even if we do well with the changes, next season will involve a massive squad update. On a more humorous note the Club press release says Aribim left the Cavalry to go to Spain!!!

Harry has his operation shortly.

I do not begrudge David Carson moving to Livingston. He gave everything he could for the club. He is all action and might well create the spark to get Livy moving and help them get closer to Ross County.

Fully expect a defender to leave.

Samuel would have impressed the new Chief Executive of Raith Rovers - Andrew Barrowman scored 2 in 30 games for ICT!!!

The initial team sheet looked risky. However, the new lads added real athleticism to the team. We went to sleep at the corner and Hamilton scored a really good goal. However, we did not lose heart and out of nowhere Samuel scored an incredibly quick hattrick. Aged 28 he has now bagged 4 goals in two games with us and if he keeps scoring he could double his career total this second half of a season. Once again he worked his socks off and has certainly released Billy to be more influential and creative. 3-1 at half time felt like a dangerous score to take into the second half and so it proved. However, and this felt like the first time Duncan has brought on substitutes when danger threatened. Rather than wait until we were 4-3 down with 4 minutes of added time left, substitutes were deployed quite early and liberally. Again if looked quite high risk with so many but it worked. This actually felt like an ICT that might now make progress if we can take that performance to next week's home game. Cammy Kerr was a great addition. No fist pumping from Duncan at the end - he let the players do the talking with Samuel hugging the match ball.

Kerr is a very good 'young' player.

Ayr play Arbroath this week subject to weather. We must get points against our two opponents before we play Hibs. If we do not we could be bottom again and a win against Hibs would not be great comfort.

The Prodigal son may well offer a few other players to us ...........

.....still to concede a goal this season in the Scottish Cup.....

Makes some sense - no relocation costs - our experience with Welsh players has been positive so far.

I think the club are preparing supporters for a poor performance on Saturday.... ' Matchday Info: Broomhill (H) | 20.01.2024 The ICT Sports Bar is open from 1pm on Friday. '

Good to see Chris Hogg as Assistant Manager for Bristol City's win over West Ham last night.

If we look back to the time of David Sutherland and George Fraser, it is clear there was strong leadership. Something seemed to happen close season this year and we have tended to assume Billy Dodds and Barry Wilson were the root causes of such a poor start.

Following pressure for more bite in the ICT attack, here is a picture of the trialist from Kincraig Rovers.

Playing superbly at present. Really nice guy. Well done to him.

Sean is a really nice guy and was a tremendous captain. We probably started out looking for a fee but to help both Club and player move forward found there was no point. Zak did his best but with Carragher brought in it looked like a strengthening of our defence by replacing someone not quite up to our requirement. Given that Cillian has hardly played despite quite a few opportunities it will be interesting to see what role he plays tonight. He may be heading out too. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a few others might be loaned out or moved on. Three out so far - DW, SW and ZD. One in so far - JC.

Lee Ashcroft also?

Cannae complain at this loan signing. Billy was at Wigan for a while. Shaun Maloney is their current Manager.

'Wotherspoon, who will not feature for Inverness against United this Friday night due to a minor injury, has opted to return to Tayside.' The Dundee Courier

A rational decision by Wotherspoon. Like many footballers reaching the end of their contracts the big question is what happens next if you fail to get another contract or retire and do not have alternative means. It was great watching him help us move off the bottom.