DoofersDad

Why should it being a Monday night be any worse than any other time - such as a Saturday afternoon? Believe me, not much happens in Dingwall on a Monday night.

Monday night means I can't go I'm afraid. Never mind though, there'll be 3 more matches after the County game.

I appreciate IHE may be relatively well informed, shall we say, but some may say that the deal has been ready to complete from the day it was announced. Remember, it was announced as a gift rather than a deal and there was an expectation that completing the necessary legal paperwork was a mere formality. Over two years later the deal is still not complete and the issue has gone off the radar from time to time so I think people can be excused for directing a bit of flak at the Board. In his post yesterday, Hugh stated that he had spoken to Allan a while back and Allan had indicated that he would resign when the deal was complete. If the deal was indeed completed we might have expected Allan's resignation to coincide with an announcement that the deal had been completed, together with a picture of the relevant parties shaking hands and sharing chummy smiles. This has not happened. The statement that the deal is now ready to complete is clearly not as good as one saying it is done and dusted but it is more positive than what we have had before. I know little about the process of such deals but I would imagine that once the deal is agreed there is a formal process to register the change of ownership. I am happy to take this at face value and assume that Allan has taken this to the stage where his input is no longer required and that it is just the red tape that is preventing the Club from making a more definite announcement. I would, however, expect such an announcement in the near future or, at the very least, a statement explaining precisely where we are with this.

And Palace's players are probably being paid more in a week than Jordan gets in a year. He's never going to win a high jump competition but I'm glad more folk are beginning to appreciate the positive qualities he does have. He's turning into an excellent signing for us.

Looks as though it could be going into extra time! Is the Tulloch deal finally going to squeeze through or will it be no deal?

It might not be the tie we as fans wanted but I'll guess that County fans wanted it even less than us. Having said that, it should generate a lot of interest and that must be good for both clubs.

...or league.

A very professional job. Good pressure early on to establish a comfortable lead. It could easily have been more if McGinley had not been on such good form in goal for East Kilbride. Oakley was one of the players denied after he had created space for himself to unleash a powerful shot goalwards. This was after a great team move started by terrific work from Rooney deep in our half half when he released the ball from the touchline under pressure from two East Kilbride players. Austin was also denied by McGinley in the 2nd half but only he will know why he didn't hit it earlier with an empty net beckoning. Doran MOTM for me. He was excellent last week as well and seems to be be getting back to something like his best. I sense that his captaincy duties weighed heavily on him and that he feels more relaxed to play his natural game now that Carl is back. Good to see Polworth get back on the score sheet again. We need him scoring a bit more often than he has so far this season so hopefully this will give him the lift he needs.. Also good to see David Proctor back in Inverness and great applause for him from the Inverness fans when he had to be subbed early in the 2nd half. Brilliant to see the whole stadium stand and join in the applause for Dawn in the 16th minute. Credit to all the East Kilbride fans who showed great respect in joining in too. It shows that despite our differences and our rivalries, at the end of the day we are all decent and compassionate folk. All in all, a very good day out.

Lots of good memories but I think I'll go for the 1-0 home win against Celtic in 2003 for a number of reasons. For a start, I wasn't able to get to the rearranged game on 2000 due to work commitments so the game itself is not a memory for me. But whilst less of a fairy tale win, the 2003 win was in many ways a far more important and impressive result. Consider the background. Having beaten Celtic in the famous game in 2000, there may not have been an expectation for us to win again, but there was certainly an expectation for us to be competitive. This would have put pressure on the team. Having been seriously embarrassed in 2000, Celtic would have come North determined to put us in our place and would not have been under-estimating us at all. They were also a very much better team in 2003. They only lost 3 league games all season and had the great Henrik Larson in the team. Beating them in those circumstances was just such a superb achievement and demonstrated that we were a team that could genuinely compete at a higher level. That and the atmosphere in the ground made it a truly memorable day. The fact that it was my Birthday also helped! Just as a footnote, our next home hatch in the league was against Queen of the South when we had a crowd of just 1656. That maybe puts our current level of support in perspective and shows that whilst we would love more folk to come to games, it is maybe not really that bad.

HT 1-0 Ft 2-0 ICT White Opp Longworth Crowd 1462

We now know a bit about the opposition but what do we know about the pitch? Hard frost last night with temps unlikely to get much above freezing today and much the same likely overnight and tomorrow?

We are creating quite a lot. In the last 10 games we are averaging over 12 shots at goal a game. I doubt we have had many periods in our history when we have had more. It 's a reflection of a team that is looking to get forward and play attractive forward. I accept we have missed a few chances that should have been taken, but in the last 3 games we have had a bit of bad luck. Fox was MOTM against County and the woodwork came to the aid both of Queens and Ayr. With a little more luck and confidence/composure in front of goal we could be turning a few more of these chances into goals. We are not far from being a pretty good side.

Are you suggesting Polworth has provided 66% of the assists this season? According to the BBC stats for league games he has provided 7 assists which is 26%. It is still a very decent contribution but as he takes many of the set pieces he does have a bit of an advantage over others. Tom Walsh has had 6 assists with 90 minutes less game time and has scored 5 goals to Polworth's one, so it looks as though we already have a midfielder contributing more to the team. There is no excuse for the abuse Polworth has received but there is no doubt that he is hugely frustrating to watch. He does some great stuff at times but then gives the ball away needlessly and seems to go awol for short spells. Having emerged in the shadow of Draper, Tansey and Vigurs, he's had a real opportunity this season to impose himself on matches as the established, experienced midfielder in the side. He's not really done that, and whilst on balance I would rather have him in the side than not, I don't think his departure will significantly weaken the side. It is strange that some folk seem to think Polworth, with 1 goal and 7 assists in 1760 minutes of football is an indispensable member of the side, yet White, with 6 goals and 1 assist in 1178 minutes on the park, is "gash". It is really disappointing that Polworth has not realised the promise that he showed from such an early age but there are other players in the side who seem to be developing and maturing faster than him. In addition, there are very promising youngsters coming through the ranks who hopefully will have more of the Ryan Christie mindset than the Liam Polworth one. It is not so much a question of Polworth leaving a hole to fill, it is more a question of others squeezing him out of it.

Another decent and positive performance from us. Good to see fine performances from players who have come in for a bit of stick this season. Despite the criticism White has been getting from some quarters, I think he could become a really important player for us. I thought he did well last week but he was even better yesterday. His work rate is excellent and he showed some great touches in build up play. He gets himself in position to score which is why, despite some bad misses over the season, his goal tally is steadily rising. Chalmers is another intelligent and underestimated player. He was a bit more positive yesterday and that certainly benefited the team. Doran also maybe had his best game of the season and was unlucky not to score. It was good to see him taking defenders on and looking to shoot. He put in a really good shift. McHattie looks like a decent signing. Game management was much better this week after we got into the lead. Clearly Ayr had to push forward more but we didn't sit deep yesterday and managed to limit the amount of ball they had. We now need to get players back from suspension, injury and illness and ensure we make it through to the next round of the cup on Saturday. We will need to be very professional to ensure we get through. East Kilbride are on a decent run of form. Last weekend's results in the FA cup make it clear how easily upsets can occur with Barnet winning Away at Sheffield United - an away victory for a non-league side against Championship opposition. We don't want that repeated North of the Border.

HT 1-0 FT 1-1 ICT Polworth Opp Moore Crowd 2141

Just to let folk know that at the Supporters Trust Board meeting on Thursday, Stewart Murdoch was elected unopposed as the new Chair. Other office bearers are as before. Current line up therefore is as follows Chair: Stewart Murdoch Vice Chair: Peter Mutton Secretary: Jennifer Aitchison Treasurer: Kath Fraser Laura Grant, Lynne Macdonald and Ewan Macrae are the other members of the team. We are currently having some discussion about how the Board should communicate both with members and the wider fan base. Updates on that and the activities of the Board will follow in due course.

A wonderful career and a great ambassador for tennis and sport more generally. I do think it is rather sad that he intends to struggle on. If his hip is so bad that it is painful to put his shoes and socks on, he is not going to be able to beat anyone half decent. One can't help but admire his bravery and determination but he really should call it a day. We have great memories of him in his prime and I would rather those be the lasting memories and not pictures of him limping off a court in tears after a heavy defeat to someone I've never heard of. Time to focus on some of the up and coming young players that he has done so much to inspire.

At the Q&A session in early December, Robbo said Beith was just a couple of weeks away from being available for selection. Since then he's yet to appear even on the bench and I haven't seen any report of further progress or setbacks. It would be interesting to know whether he is likely to feature soon or whether there has been another setback. I agree one should not write a player off too soon, but the brutal truth is that the club simply cannot afford to risk extending a contract on a player who hasn't been fit enough to show what he can do. I agree with you that we have a decent crop of players considering the wages we are now paying. Yogi had far more money for his playing budget and I think a comparison between Robbo's signings and Yogi's demonstrates just how savvy Robbo has been in his dealings.

Actually, when we went 2 up top we scored 5 minutes later. The problem was how we then dropped back defending the lead rather than continuing to do what got us the goal. Having just put 2 up top, dropping back therefore made us more exposed in midfield. I also think White did OK with a very solid overall contribution to the team performance. Sometimes he drops back a fair bit to help with the defence and he made a lot of good contributions in the build up play. If he is played in that way, having 2 up front makes a lot of sense allowing for a more fluid system which can make it harder for defences to pick up.

That was the disappointing thing for me. We always looked more likely to score and having got the goal we should have continued to do what we had been doing relatively well. In his post match interview Barry Wilson acknowledged that, but what was worrying was that he said the players had often dropped too deep after scoring this season. If that is a known problem then why did it happen again yesterday? Where was the leadership on the park to keep the focus and drive? And why weren't the coaching staff on their feet bawling instructions to the players to push up? We absolutely threw away 3 points yesterday and handed them on a plate to one of our closest rivals. The tragedy is that whilst we didn't play with the intensity we saw against County, we still played pretty well on the whole and created plenty of chances. We were unlucky to hit the woodwork twice and could have won the game comfortably. In his interview, Naismith acknowledged they were lucky to win but also said that his side played as well as they have for several weeks. That must be an acknowledgement that we were pretty decent. It's a hard one to take but that might just mean that lessons will be learnt this time. This season in the league, we have conceded 7 goals in the last 10 minutes of games but have scored only 2. However, we are averaging 1.9 points per game when we score first whilst our opponents are averaging just 1.3 points per game when they score first. That is an encouraging if, on the face of it, a rather contradictory statistic. This seems to suggest that we are generally pretty good at fighting back when behind and have the capability to capitalise on taking an early lead, but that we have rather poor game management towards the end of games. The net effect of the late goals is that we have 6 less points than we would have had if the final score had been what it was on 80 minutes. Clearly our opponents have correspondingly more. This is clearly a key area for the management team to work on.

HT 1-1 FT 2-1 ICT Walsh Opp Dobbie Crowd 2096 1st Yellow Brad McKay Ist straight red Tremarco

There is no doubt that the lad has a lot of talent, but the question is whether that talent can be channelled to make him more of a team player. There are also question marks about his temperament. Having had a taste of the premiership with a big club may have given him a bit more of an insight on what he needs to do to reach the top and a loan spell with us may well be just what he needs at this stage of his career. I seem to recall Robbo saying that Mulraney was on one of these absurd contracts whereby if he had been kept on this season his wages would have doubled. Robbo knows all about Jake's strengths and weaknesses and if he thinks he can do a job for us, then getting Jake on loan for far less than had he not gone to Hearts may end up being a good bit of business. Walsh on one wing and Mulraney on the other sounds good to me.

Nice to have a thread where we can all agree on something! Happy New Year to one and all.

Great bit of work. Very interesting!

Scotty, you've listed Oakley amongst the line up but he was out injured and White started - and scored.