hislopsoffsideagain

Rubbish game, rubbish result, rubbish performance, rubbish weather, rubbish attendance.

Did I mention it was rubbish?

To be fair we were making Celtic work very hard until their first goal - I haven't seen the TV pictures but I had several texts from friends watching the game on Sky who also highlighted Proctor's failure to track Samaras for the first goal - so people should lay of RiG! However the fact is that Tokely made a complete dog's dinner of it and, for all the power and swerve in Samaras' shot, Tuffey seemed to get two hands on it. I'm staggered that, in a game of such importance, Butcher decided to use our second choice keeper. I don't care about keeping Tuffers happy - the cup is the only chance we'll ever have of winning anything (and even a replay would have been worth £££), so Esson should blatantly have been in goal.

After we fell behind, we seemed to switch to some sort of 5-4-1 system with Gillet slotted in as a third centre-back and Shinnie and Meekings as wingbacks...which was a foolish move as it just condemned us to being cramped in our own half. We never looked remotely like scoring in the second half. I didn't agree with the substitutions either - Nick Ross was having a much better game than most of his teammates, and I'd much rather have had Tade on the pitch than Sutherland.

The second goal was even more farcical than the first - initially Tuffey's throw out to Sutherland was risky at best, then Sutherland gave the ball away and put us in trouble, and finally Proc made a hash of shielding the ball out and bundled the forward over for a penalty. And that, as they say, was that.

Pass marks to Gillet and Ross, but that's about it. I felt quite let down by the lack of fight we showed in the second half. Opportunities for glory don't come around all that often for ICT players - and they well and truly blew their chance today to make a name for themselves.

Was thinking after the game about our centre half situation - for me, Hogg, Golobart and Williams are our best centre-backs (all of whom were injured), and Gillet is probably the next best. So today we had, for me, our 5th and 6th best central defenders on the pitch. I'd like to see any other SPL team keep out Celtic with their 5th and 6th centre backs on the field!

As regards Nick Ross, I've been really impressed in the last couple of games by his runs from deep, getting in behind defenders. His timing is good and he does often arrive in the box at the right moment...the problem is with what he does next!

We were absolutely honking in the first half - if we strung more than two passes together even once, then I didn't see it. I lost count of the number of times Foran, Tansey and Proctor gave the ball away cheaply. Their keeper, who could have spent the opening 45 minutes drinking coffee and reading a newspaper, must have got a bit of a shock when we came out second half and created enough chances to win it. Gnakpa's effort off the post was incredibly unlucky; the misses by Tansey, Tade and Ross were just poor. That said, St Mirren had chances too, mostly because of horrendous mistakes from our players.

If you'd offered me 4 points from the last 2 games ten days ago then I would have taken it; to be honest, today we were nowhere near the level we were playing at last week and a 0-0 was a fair reflection of both the parity and the quality on show today.

Anyone who paid £20+ for a ticket for that must feel like a right prat.

At least they got the MOTM right for once - Gillet was easily our best player. Rossco also did well today, I thought. Gnakpa gave us a real lift when he came on; Tade had his poorest match for a long time today and I wonder whether he might be replaced for the Celtic game by his fellow Frenchman.

Bajram Fetai, anyone? He was brutal(Though he went on and won some international caps after he left us!)

Take a bow, lads. :clapping:

That was a superb performance in really difficult conditions; in the second half the wind was so bad that Ryan Esson's main concern was getting his goal kicks near the half way line.

A deserved win in the end, against a Hearts side who offered very little until the last 10 minutes. It could have been more but for the chalked off effort from Gillet in the first half, and the referee's refusal to give a pen for what looked like a blatant handball by Hamill in the second half.

The back four deserve plenty of plaudits for the clean sheet- especially since none of them played on Wednesday! I often moan about Proctor, but he was superb today and really handled Sutton well. Williams looks like a good old-fashioned British centre-half, and dealt with the conditions well. Gillet did his usual solid job at left back (should we keep him there or move him back to the centre?) and every time I've seen Meekings I've been impressed - hard to believe he's only 19 and I think he's a real prospect.

Our best players, though, were Tansey, who looked like the only person on the pitch who could pass the ball today and had his best game of the season, and Captain Fantastic Richie Foran, who continues to be a revelation in midfield. Considering the lack of running he seemed to do when he was playing up front, the workrate he has put in during the last few games has been remarkable.

I've just seen the table, and we're only two points off sixth place!

I think it's fair to say it is now official - 'Useless' Euan Norris is the worst official in Scottish football. Not content with screwing us over against Rangers, he appeared determined from the outset to allow our opponents to take liberties all over the pitch. The sending off of Gillet looked a bit fishy to me - Kenny appeared convinced he'd won the ball - and certainly there was plenty of protest that Barrowman was offside as he put Dunfermline in front.

Two incidents summed Norris up - in the first half he pulled up Barrowman for his umpteenth foul and clearly gave him a 'final warning' chat; a minute later Barrowman hacks someone else...and Norris stops him for a long chat again. Then, right on half-time Dunfermline's defensive wall refused to retreat for a free kick even when the ref stood where he wanted them to be. Instead of booking one of them, he gave up when he got them 8 yards...and then ignored the fact that one of them raced out so they were about 5 yards from the ball when the free kick was taken.

About the only thing that cretin of a referee got right was adding on six minutes for the obscene amount of time wasting the Pars did in the second half - though I don't know why he can't book the time wasters as well as adding on the time.

If I was a Dunfermline fan, I would be horrified and ashamed by their second half performance. They never had any control over the game, even against ten men, and seemed content simply to camp out on the 18 yard box and see the game out. Entire civilizations have risen and fallen in the time it took them to make one substitution. They managed all of two speculative efforts on goal in the second period, as far as I can recall.

As for us, we were pretty hopeless with eleven men, but I thought we did about as well as you can expect in the second half. Tuffers is the main villain of the piece - it was his horrendous air-shot on a backpass which led to the Gillet dismissal, and then he only managed to palm the resultant freekick straight to Barrowman. Frankly, he had bugger all else to do for most of the game.

Our back four did a pretty good job today. Piermayr did well when tucked in at centre-half, though Coxy looked a bit uncertain when he was shunted to right-back. Once again, Golobart was superb. Barrowman took one look at him and clearly decided "I'm not up for taking him on" - so nothing has changed from when he played for us.

Most impressive for me was Foran, who I felt gave a real captain's performance today - he led by example with fantastic effort and seemed to be still urging everyone on even when all was lost. He's had plenty of criticism this season (much of it warranted) but since moved into midfield he has looked like a different man.

The big message to take away from this game is this: If Dunfermline are like this every week, then there is absolutely no chance we are going down.

Just listened to TB's post-match interview - Tokely and Andrew Shinnie both had calf injuries and might be back for midweek. Tansey was on the bench because he had been ill this week.

Jonny Hayes also on twitter saying he had the squits pre-match and had to knock back some imodium before the game!

Not exactly vintage stuff...but if you'd offered me a 2-1 win before kickoff I'd have bitten your hand off.

The first half was absolutely brutal from both sides. The wind didn't help, but the number of poor touches and misplaced passes was astonishing. At half-time it had 0-0 written all over it. The start of the second period was much the same.

Then, out of nothing, Davis skins three players and brings a save out of their keeper. From the resulting corner, Golobart bullets in a header. A few minutes later we get another corner, the ball bobbles around a bit, and Tade's shot squirms through a crowd and into the bottom corner.

Of course, we can't make it easy on ourselves; Aberdeen got one back when Cox made a pig's ear of defending out wide, all the defenders ran to the near post and left Fallon unmarked at the back stick to pull one back. That said, Esson didn't really have a save to make before or after.

Not a great performance, but on a day like today only the three points matter. Golobart deserved MOTM for me, doing really well considering he got booked in the first minute. Gillet did a fantastic job alongside him. Davis was his usual Tank-like self, and Richie Foran had his best game at home for ages - he played deep in midfield again like last week and seems to bring us a bit of steel to that area of the pitch. Tade put in another great shift.

On the other hand, I thought Cox had a poor game, and McKay looked a bit lost up front on his own. Graeme Shinnie got a bit of a runaround in the second half as well.

4 points clear of Dunfermline (and hopefully Hibs) - lets make sure we increase that gap in midweek!

Since Hogg has just tweeted 'devastated isn't the word!!!!!!!' I assume the news about his knee is bad.

Gutted

According to his twitter, Hogg will be getting a scan on the knee on Monday.

That was an absolute nightmare.

1-0 at half-time flattered us completely - Dundee Utd had all the possession and we just sat back and hung on.

When the second goal went in I thought it might be our day...but what a pitiful collapse. Each of the three goals was a defensive catastrophe.

With the exception maybe of Hayes and Davis (at least up to his sending off), it was an abysmal performance. Utd's 4-5-1, with an extra man in central midfield, allowed them to dominate, and even when they went to 4-4-2 it seemed like we didn't know what to do. The management deserve plenty of blame - TB's decision to bring on Nick Ross, who touched the ball all of five times and gave the ball away every time, and to leave Tade on the bench for so long, beggars belief. We were desperately crying out for a holding midfield player like Gavin Morrison on the pitch. And I can't help feeling Butcher should have been concentrating on the game for the last 10 minutes, instead of spending the time shouting back at critical spectators.

The defence did all right in the first half, but imploded in the second - not helped by an appalling lack of protection from Cox and in particular Tansey who repeatedly gave the ball away and lost every single 50-50 challenge he attempted. Typical Golobart - rock-solid for the majority of the time, then slices a harmless cross-shot into his own net under no pressure.

As for Foran, well, our captain plumbs new depths in the quality of his performances every time I see him. Like Tansey, he was a liability today. He's too slow, he can't win headers (he keeps trying to pretend he's being pushed but the ref today wasn't falling for it) and he offers his full-back no protection. With Hayes double-teamed most of the time, McKay is left with only scraps to feed on.

We've had some rotten performances this season - Aberdeen away, Dunfermline at home - but this one was as bad as any. And without Hogg, I'm not sure we're going to improve our defending any time soon.

Yngwie, you have just made my day.

You're absolutely right, RiG. Whenever I go up for a header I always look to see who might be challenging me - doesn't mean I want to elbow them!

Outside the ground after the game there were a number of Celtic fans belting out 'ooh ah, up the ra'.

Do you honestly think the SPL would dare to punish Celtic? It's quite clear that the Old Firm are pretty much untouchable in Scotland - only UEFA would dare penalize them for anything.

Terry's post-match interview is utterly, utterly wonderful. I hope he and Mo waited outside O'Reilly's door for the coward to come out and face the music.

Usually I'm happy to put down these shocking decisions down to the refs just being incompetent - but having watched that game, that's the closest I've ever come to believing that a referee is bent. I'm certain that, had the score been 0-0 with 20 minutes left, he would have found a reason to give Celtic a penalty.

I'd love to see Samaras in front of the SFA for clearly feigning injury to get a player sent off - but the SFA will probably ignore that...just as they will inevitably refuse to rescind the red card.

As for our own players today, I thought they put in an excellent performance - the back four did a very good job indeed, with Tokely as the stand out, and I thought David Davis was absolutely magnificent in midfield.

The next time we play one of the Old Firm, we should probably just start the game with ten men, in order to save the referee time later on.

Oh, and what on earth was the deal with that 'Famine and Oppression' banner in the Celtic end? Judging by the waistlines of the away support, there ain't been no famine anywhere near them. They were also giving the sectarian songs a good belt outside the ground after the match, with not a policeman in sight.

Considering there's been a lot of whinging about how we haven't adequately replaced Adam Rooney, and how we don't have an adequate goal threat, and that Tade isn't a 'natural goalscorer' (whatever the hell that means), I thought it might be interesting to compare Rooney from last season against Tade from this season:

Rooney in 2010/11

All competitions: 21 goals in 42 games (41 starts, 1 as sub)

SPL: 15 goals in 38 games (37 starts, 1 as sub)

Tade in 2011/12

All competitions: 6 goals in 15 games (13 starts, 2 as sub)

SPL: 6 goals in 14 games (13 starts, 1 as sub)

Note that Rooney's goals included 7 penalties, 5 of which were in the league. So he only scored 10 goals from open play in the SPL last season. Tade is, in fact, only 4 goals away from equalling Rooney's total in open play for the whole of last season in the SPL!

What a run by Davis for the fifth - three Killie defenders just bounced off of him. And what a run by Tade for his first, 60 yards, and then round the keeper...not bad for a guy who has missed so many one-on-ones this season.

My mum's half-time analysis of the game - 'We're doing all right. We should probably win this.'

She's certainly a better pundit than Alan Shearer...

Awesome result. Well done, lads!

That bad feeling I had pre-kickoff was clearly just indigestion!

Still bottom, but only five points off top six.

It's a shame it's an international break next week...

The world's gone mad. Six goals away from home?!

Yet, unless Hibs nick a goal, we're still bottom of the league!

Typical - I blogged this week that Caley would be relegated this season.

Then they go and score four goals away from home.

I clearly know nothing about football.

Oh, for goodness sake...

Thought Shane played well last week, shame he's not available today - neck injury I think?

That defence worries the heck out of me

I'd be quite happy with a point today. Got a bad feeling about this.