DoofersDad

Mr Angry? I'm Mr Angry. I'm English and I like cricket. Talk about a team going downhill!

I think Dougal has been consistent on this point - and it is a good one. As a club we suffer from the mentality of locals who would rather support Celtic, some other longer established club or even the newly established club down Ibrox way. To a large extent this will be because there was not a Scottish League side in the Highlands when they started watching football. In many cases this disease is passed on from parents to children but if the kids can be immunised against it by getting a dose of ICT from time to time then we may slowly get crowds picking up. The situation with incomers is a different matter. You can't expect folk born and brought up elsewhere in Scotland to suddenly support ICT just because they live here. That cuts both ways and it is important for the quality and volume of our away supporters that Invernesians exiled in the Central Belt that they maintain their allegience to ICT. For incomers like me from South of the Border there is less of a problem. ICT are never going to play my home town team so there is no conflict of interest. No reason whilst we shouldn't support ICT and, as Dougal observes, there are good numbers who do. But back to the OP's post. If this bloke's girlfriend looks like his Dad he is hardly in a position to criticise others for errors of judgement - every reason to be angry, though.

Can you explain how playing it slow and narrow through a congested midfield is more open and attractive than breaking with speed down the wings?

No doubt about his talent but his attitude is not what is required of a professional footballer. Its a real shame - there are loads of kids with the right attitude who would give anything to have his talent, but he has the talent and wastes it. Only he can sort it, but sadly I don't think he ever will. Such a waste.

Lots of Bull but no doubles or trebles.

I would like to see our front men do that a little more determindly as well. Opposition keepers are rarely threatened in that way but can look just as shakey as Brill on the rare occasions they are.

I doubt that some of the players would have lasted the full ninety minutes.

Welcome back, Lawrence! Haven't seen a post from you for a while.

I'll be optimistic and wait until after the St Mirren match before replying.

Personally I think it is the failure to score that is making our defence and our keeper nervous. Errors at the back are so much more costly when you are not scoring at the other end.

He's done that before with others. He's probably past his best now and whilst capable of inspirational performances on the park, they are becoming a bit few and far between. Perhaps it's time to think about him having a role more off the park than on it. Perhaps a regular place on the bench and the occasional appearence when the defensive midfield needs strengthened late in the 2nd half. At the very least I think he needs a rest for a couple of games.

Intersting point about Yngwie's ratings is that Brill and Tansey who were stand out players at the week were apparently poor tonight. It appears that nobody (with the probable exception of Shinnie) is playing to a reasonable standard with any consistency at the moment. Just as you think someone seems up for it they disappoint in the next match and vice-versa. Makes it difficult to know who to persist with and who to rest. Perhaps a significant freshening up of the starting XI will do the trick.

This is your OP Mahonio. Sorry, but can't see any question marks in that. The thread title may have a question mark attached but you make your position very clear in your post. Your post was a strong criticism of the manager and was not a question. If you don't like people disagreeing with you then you only have yourself to blame. I'm glad you have posted something more positive about giving the youngsters more of a chance. I'm sure most folk will agree with you on that.

Think the thread went OTT with the first post. Second poster got it bang on IMHO

Top six will all take lots of points off each other so if we can get a good run together we can still at least equal last season's position and perhaps even go one better. But in order to do that we have got to score more goals. It's all very well trying to keep a clean sheet but at the moment we are shakey at the back and are giving away goals. If you are not scoring at the other end, there is more pressure on the defence and it makes them more nervous. In any case, it doesn't matter how good you are defensively, a bit of attacking brilliance can always undo you. All the other 5 teams in the top six have players who on their day are capable of seriously harming the opposition's goals difference. If we are going to get a string of good results it has to be on the back of a recognition that we are going to concede and therefore we simply have to be more adventurous up front. It sounds as though young Polworth has led the way today by having the courage to have a go when the opportunity arose. We have a number of players who have a good shot on them and we need to be looking to score. A bit more width gives the opportunity to get behind defences and opens up the middle for long range shooting. We are now at the stage of the season where winning is far more important than not losing and we need to set up to score goals. St Mirren desparately need to get something out of the match on Saturday and will be short on confidence. We really need to use them as target practice and get our goal scoring confidence back. Lets take up on Saturday where Polworth left off tonight and get them shooting boots on. A good attacking approach and a good win could get us back on track for a good end to the season. If we don't make it to the top 3 or even 4th, then let's at least play attractive attacking football in trying.

Looks like 4th is the best we can hope for but 6th seems more likely than 4th at the moment, Hopefully a more adventurous line up in future games might see some results - but on the other hand! Get in there!

But non-iron shorts please!

Super sub!

The allegiances of football fans in our city are such that a club from a city 150 miles away finds it economically viable to have a shop in our main retail outlet but our own home city team does not. Until that changes the only way we will fill our little ground is to have the home fans restricted to the main stand whilst Celtic have the North and South stands

I may be wrong but I think it was Peter Lorimer who said that he would see someone in the crowd behind the goal in row G or whatever, focus on them through the net and then try to hit the ball as hard as possible at them. Had Greg and Billy aimed to knock the head off one of the Aberdeen lads, things might have been very different. But back to the OP. Very good question to which nobody seems to have come up with a remotely plausible answer yet.

Celtic players I think. Allowed to sit there to give them a feel for what it's like to be on the pitch at a cup final.

Sounds as though Hibs were woeful today (again). I wonder if Butcher still has the team in the dressing room or whether there is actually any of the dressing room left. Chippies between Perth and Leith will not be having extra business tonight.

I was very worried at half time. I thought the team selection was far too defensive and I thought the team all looked very nervous. The only two who did well were Brill in goal and Williams who seemed to be the only player who really wanted the ball and wanted to do something other than simply give it to somebody else when he had it. I think this demonstrated how dependent we sometimes are on Doran. Without him we seem bereft of ideas as most of what the side normally does going forward involves him. Nobody else seemed to want to take responsibility and the ball just went sideways or back. I don't know what Yogi said at half time but it seemed to work. There was a much greater sense of purpose, much more movement off the ball and even a willingness to shoot. Tansey's contribution to the second half in particular was excellent. But when both Tansey and Mckay missed great opportunities I thought it just wasn't going to be our day. When the goal finally came the sense of relief on the pitch and around the ground was tangible. Williams played well and was unlucky to be subbed. Ross replaced him in a like for like role and did well. Christie replacing Foran added an extra spark and creativity and the balance of the side looked better. I'd like to see Ross and Christie have more game time together. With Doran rather than Watkins, the team we finished up with would be capable of some pretty entertaining attacking football IMHO. Whilst overall it wasn't the greatest of games, there was enough in the 2nd half to indicate that there is some good football to come for the remainder of the season. I doubt that we will be good enough for top 3 but there is no reason why we can't get 4th spot. Unfortunately the rest of the top 6 all won this weekend so we have not made up any ground. Actually quite unusual for the top six to be playing the bottom 6 in the same weekend and for all the top six to win.

Yes. I don't think that was in the game plan. I thought Richie was our poorest player in an overall disappointing performance. He picked up a justified booking for a rash challenge and just couldn't pick a pass at all. It says a lot about Yogi's strength of character that he took him off. Bush makes an excellent point in that we can't have Foran, Draper, Vincent and Tansey all playing at the same time. In my view, Foran is the one to make way. There are times when he is excellent (he was superb against County) but those times are becoming fewer and fewer. He seems to have lost a yard of pace and he's not winning balls on the back post in the way he used to. I doubt he'll be captain next season.

It is very disappointing that the crowd was still so small despite the incentives. Club can't do much more than it's doing. If people don't want to watch their local football team then you can't force them. The Board just has to tailor it's strategy to the low level of support the club gets. Of course, the better the product on the park, the more will pay to watch but as long as we don't pretend we can sell out the stands other than for very occasional matches.