Row S

Esson Raven - Devine - Meekings - Shinnie Foran - Tansey Watkins - Vincent - Ross McKay Subs: Brill, Tremarco, Warren, Draper, Doran, Williams & Christie

Less that four weeks to go and still no arrangements made public. Hopefully we will know what our ticket allocation is early this week and when they go on sale. We really need to start booking buses and Scotrail need to decide if they are laying on extra trains.

A good post that more or less summed up my view of the game. However, I think we need to try some different options starting with the game against Stranraer on Tuesday. Doran needs rested and Nick Ross could easily slot in on the left. Draper needs to wise a up a bit too - he was a bit sloppy yesterday. Devine also needs some game time before the LC Final.

Brill Raven Devine Meekings Shinnie Draper Foran Watkins Tansey Ross McKay Bench: Esson, Warren, Tremarco, Christie, Polworth, Vincent, Doran

What else could we expect from the SPFL, the scummy east end of Glasgow of course.

GIRUY THE SPFL and all the blazers. You will think twice about messing the mighty Csley Jags about again.

I watched on tv as I said I would. Firstly well done guys for a fantastic never say die performance. You made me feel so proud. Justice was done for the red cards. Firstly it wasn't Warren who committed the foul for his second yellow. It was Watkins. No wonder Gary was raging for being no where near the incident. Then Josh's red card was no worse than a yellow and certainly not as bad as Robinson's near leg breaker on Billy in 6 minutes.

The Castle Tavern, Inverness. Crowd of us who choose not to travel.

As long as they all plus the rest of the squad get extra practice in training this week at taking them.

Brill Raven Warren Meekings Tremarco Watkins Tansey Polworth Shinnie Vincent Mckay Subs - Esson, Devine, Draper, Doran, Williams, Ross, Christie Draper and Doran need to prove themselves more to get back in the team. Polworth deserves a longer run after his recent performances.

Still not enough action by the SPFL to get me to go. Our fans will be hugely outnumbered and with a Sunday lunchtime kick off when we generally can't win, I fear the worst. I will be watching from (behind) my sofa. I was discussing ticket prices with folk around me today too. Many of them are pensioners and are not at all happy to have to pay £20 to sit in the stands at Fester Road.

Overall a much better performance than of late. Why has it taken Yogi 4 matches to realise that Raven should be in the team? Doran was much better on the right with back up from him and Warren wasn't forced to cover for Shinnie. The last penalty we scored was taken by Doran. It was in the cup v Morton, after Nick Ross had been subbed. However, I agree with Renegade that Josh should take them. I also think Dean Brill has to stop clowning around. He has let in some soft goals in the last few weeks and nealy lost a howler today. No wonder Ryan came racing out the dug-out to warm up after that one. Still we can't win a game with a Sunday lunchtime kick off. At least not that I can remember. Doesn't bode well for the LC semi on 2 Feb.

Absolutely shocking were the only two (censored) words I had for yesterday's performance. Hughes has to shoulder the blame for it and for not being able to change things, and not laugh it off like the 0-1 loss to Celtic. He had a reputation at Falkirk for accepting close one goal defeats. However, that is just not acceptable, even against Celtic. I also heard yesterday that Raven has a stress fracture of his leg and would not last long if he came on. Why was he even on the bench then? We could have brought Devine into the middle and pushed Meekings to right back. Warren was more effective in that position too when we went three at the back. What's happened to Matthew Cooper? It looks like we will have to go with Polworth and Shinnie in central midfield for the Motherwell game. Doran must play on the right and not get lost on the left or middle as he was so often yesterday.

Brill Raven Warren Meekings Tremarco Draper Shinnie Doran Ross Watkins McKay Raven must play and Shinnie will put in a good shift in central left midfield. If Doran has been missing Raven he has the chance to show that against County. Ross and Watkins have the ability to pick-pocket the County midfield and defence and so cause havoc like they did against Hearts. Let's get ready to party!!!!!!

The BBC must have thought that they would shorten the highlights on Sportscene and their website as BT Sport had covered then game live. There was far more goal mouth action from both sides than they bothered to show. As I don't have BT Sport but was at the game I would have appreciated more.

To be fair I thought we were unlucky for the first two goals. We were on top before the bizarre penalty which I think was Aberdeen's first shot on goal. Robson's header for the second was a complete fluke. Then our midfielders contrived to give the ball away and that put the pressure on our defence and can't blame Warren. He had to cover a lot for Shinnie as well. Despite all that and the great perfomance in the second half I came away feeling we were robbed and should have won. We had at least two legitimate penalty claims and hit the woodwork. The ref did us no favours either and missed a lot of off the ball incidents as well as Aberdeen throw in takers stealing 10 yards up the touchline every time. Hopefully we can now put that result behind us and take the good points of the game into the next few. That includes keeping Raven in the team but not Williams. Shinnie will give us a better shift in the middle of the midfield filling the Richie Foran role while he recovers from injury.

Must have been the cheap option - the others demanding too much money? My hope is that the players respond better than the fans.

Common sense isn't part of the SPFL's remit. Sounds like all they did was listen to what CJT had to say but with no intention of giving way. If there is heavy snow that weekend blocking the A9 and fans can't get down will the game be postponed? I doubt it. I also doubt that the SPFL will pay for the cost of chartering special trains either. I was against going to Easter Road in the first place regardeless of the date or time. The fact that it's live on BBC has made my mind up where I'll be watching it. I'll save my cash for the final. Looks like we'll be lucky to sell 2000 tickets.

Middle of next week now for appointment, according to STV news headline.

Even if Dean Brill is signed up until the end of next season I don't think Ryan Esson will follow Butcher & Co to Fester Road. TB and him never really hit it off.

My mobile phone calendar tells me that 2 February is Groundhog Day. Well last season's experience is going to be repeated with this absolutely disgraceful decision. Same again in 2015, 16, 17 .............? We do enough travelling up and down to the Central Belt each season so the least the powers that be could do is give us less of a journey. That on the back of two away league games at Aberdeen and Kilmarnock. As well as this being a short trip for Jambos, playing the games at Tynecastle and Fester Road devalues the whole cup semi final experience. It should have been ICT v Hearts at Perth and Aberdeen v St Johnstone at Tannadice - no brainers. I suppose the SPFL/SFA think that as we have a small fan base our views won't matter. WELL, I for one will not wish to fork out for such a trip for the second year in a row and will park myself in front of my tv that afternoon.

If compensation is the issue perhaps TB should do what the new Scotland rugby coach Vern Cotter has had to do. He is currently contracted to French club side Clermont Auvergne and has to serve out his time there before he takes up the Scotland job in June 2014!! That way TB could lead us to a League Cup win and finish first or second to qualify for Europe before he has to go and manage Edinburgh's wee team. That would also give our board plenty time to find a replacement and what an incentive to attract a top manager. Oh, and I forgot, the board should try to keep our best players too. We'll need them for our European foray.

Look at the number of "guests" browsing this forum just now - 98! Most of them must be Hubries looking for news and worried in caseTB changes his mind.

The only disappointment is that it wasn't at least 5. If Doran could shoot properly from distance it would have been. What a finish by Billy Mckay though. Hibs are woeful and if Terry doesn't have a change of heart in the next 48 hours he will have a hard job sorting them out. His missus looked thoroughly p'd off every time she was caught on camera. She must have been thinking what is he about to do? What was going on with Deano's kicking in the early part of the game? He was lucky he didn't give a away a penalty when he floored Forster with that punch too. Mind you he didn't have much else to do so he had to keep himself busy somehow. Terry who?

Can't see why the Arabs claimed the GMS incident and reaction to it turned the game. We were clearly on top at the time and should have been 2 or 3-1 up. If anything it was their opening goal that turned the game as we took it to them after that. All sour grapes from the Arabs who I thought were better than that but turned out to be a bunch of cheating whinging wimps when the going got tough.