AlexJones

Most current ICT and Falkirk players have never played in this fixture before. So past results mean nothing. It'd be like worrying about Forfar because they beat us so often back in Division 3. Reminds me of the old Trigger sketch in Only Fools and Horses. "This old broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in it's time." We're not the same team anymore, neither are they. Can't say I'm too familiar with their current squad. Jamie MacDonald is a good keeper. David McCracken is a solid centre half. Mark Kerr and Alan Maybury were tosh in the SPL, and are as old as the hills now, so can see them struggling to cope with our pace. Cooper once scored a goal against us for County, but don't remember him doing much else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUKD6SvFYAo It's a weak header, and Shinnie is sprinting towards the line in time. I don't think he even needs to leave his feet to reach this. Perhaps I am over-estimating Shinniesta, but I honestly think he's good enough to stop it.

One more argument that others haven't mentioned yet. Looking closely at the incident again, even if Meekings misses the ball, Shinnie is covering the line. So not a 'last man' offence by any means.

. How about Scotty and the Skyhooks? BIRO? Or the Shire? There are plenty of good Invernessian bands. If all else fails, we can hire Kim the busker. Added by tm4tj. Personal abuse not acceptable.

Grunching, but would this be the first time in football history that a player was retrospectively suspended for handball? If so, WTF? If ever there was a case of placating the mob, this is it. I don't know who is more spineless: Celtic FC for pandering to the most toxic segment of their support by writing that ridiculous letter, or the SFA for granting them their pound of flesh. The media also deserves criticism for their coverage. Their entire focus has been upon Celtic and their victimhood narrative, rather than the real story - how a team with just a small fraction of Celtic's budget, only 20 years in existence, branded relegation favourites this season by the bookies, has just made history reaching their first ever Scottish Cup Final. A team consisting of homegrown youngsters and free signings from the Vauxhall conference, managed by a coach who most of Scottish football had written off - blew the Scottish Champions away with a display of Guardiola-esque passing football. The brilliant performances of Graeme Shinnie and Ryan Christie. These should have been the stories. They virtually write themselves. Not all this constant Old Firm p1sh. Hopefully this ridiculous, vindictive charge is written off ASAP. I don't see how it can't be. You'd be opening a whole can of worms. How many players would you have to suspend in a season? If every handball in the box is fair game, then what else? Where do you draw the line? How can you get away with taking action against Meekings, but none of the other handballs that have occurred this season? It's completely untenable. When it's all said and done, this might even work in our favour. It could galvanize and motivate the players. The old fashioned 'siege mentality'. I would absolutely love it if Yogi came out and absolutely lambasted Celtic and the powers that be. He'd have the whole (rest) of Scottish football behind him.

I wonder how many of them were Celtic fans? http://www.irishtimes.com/news/irish-fans-march-to-french-embassy-1.849510

Surprised by the West Brom link. Can't see a player like Christie fitting in well at a Tony Pulis team. "Right Ryan, when you get the ball, hoof it up to Berahino as quick as you can son."

Any chance of appealing Warren's red?

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/celtic-seek-uefa-clarification-over-juventus-match-referees-decisions.1360937003

I recall Celtic sending an official complaint to Uefa seeking 'clarification' over their defeat against Juventus a couple of years back. Something to do with shirt tugging? Clearly this conspiracy goes all the way to the top.

Celtic fans are all over the internet claiming 'all the big decisions' went against them. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, McLean bottled it for 90% of the game and gave the Celtic fans every single decision they appealed for. Some of the soft fouls and yellow cards being bailed out to ICT were laughable. Conversely, Celtic players were getting away with murder and should have had at least 4 or 5 more bookings. Its worth noting that Celtic's second goal came from a free-kick that was never even close to a foul. Only one big decision went ICT's way, and it wasn't crucial. When it was all said and done, Celtic were still 1-0 up with 11 men on the park. ICT absolutely played them off the park with some of the best passing football you'll see in this country. That's the real story.

There must be some young talent knocking around the Highland league.

Slightly off topic, I found this an interesting read. Our former centre half Chris Hogg wrote a blog documenting his experience of recovering from a long term knee injury and the setbacks he had to overcome along the way... http://chrishoggthefightback.blogspot.co.uk/

I noticed a giant Wick banner in the Celtic end on Saturday afternoon. Quite amazing that Wick Academy were playing in their first ever cup final at Clach park on the same day, and a bunch of dirty Weekers chose to go watch Celtic at TCS instead. Sums up so much of what's wrong with Scottish football IMO.

If memory serves me correctly, TCS has the biggest pitch in British football, with the exact same dimensions as Wembley Stadium.

Deano's injury overshadowed an excellent result. He looked in some pain. Perhaps a bit harsh but I thought the paramedics were a bit slow getting to him, plodding onto the pitch like they were having a Sunday stroll. A dislocated knee usually puts a player on the shelf for 6 months, so the big man's season is over. In consolation, Esson came on and kept a clean sheet. Hope he goes on and takes up the mantle with both hands (no pun intended). The performance was a mixed bag. Defensively the whole back 4 (and Esson) were excellent. Draper broke up play well. Our midfield and front 2 also pressed well and did a lot of defensive covering. Going forward we didn't put too many good moves together. Shinnie looked our biggest threat with his surging runs. Ofere had a very impressive first hour, he harried and pressed, held the ball up brilliantly and picked out a good pass most of the time. He was also a threat in the air, even against Celtics mammoth centre halves. After that he started to fade. He surely must start next week. As the second half went on, we started sitting deeper and deeper, giving Celtic space and time to build moves, and had to resort to hoofball. Real backs to the wall stuff. Sometimes you have to play ugly to get a result. I know I wasn't alone in the stands feeling relieved when the ball was played long, rather than a short hospital pass along the back. Thought the referee had a poor game today. Some of the yellow cards he dished out were absolutely bonkers. It's a minor miracle that both teams finished the game with 11 men.

Finishing second with Aberdeen isn't much of an achievement given their resources. With their wage budget they pretty much have the pick of any SPFL players who are out of contract, and can even afford to drop a £300,000 transfer fee on a Saint Mirren player. The 'revival' under Derek Mcinnes is more of a reflection on the utter ineptitude of his predecessors than anything he's done. They are a decent team but hardly play great football, and certainly can't be described as 'punching above their weight' in any true sense. I applaud him for clearing out all the duds, signing better players and bringing the crowds back, but anything else would have been failure. The fact that he's such an arrogant, abrasive pr1ck certainly doesn't help his case either. I had my doubts about Yogi in his first season, but he's won me over. He hasn't had the budget to sign star players, rather he's worked with the squad he inherited and improved them as footballers. That's good management. I think the 'Butcher hoofball vs Yogi passing' comparison is hugely exaggerated. We played a lot of good passing football under Butcher, and also have our fair share of hoof-fests under Yogi, even to this day. But overall, I think there has been an improvement in our style of play. Let's hope the current malaise is just a blip!

Shades of our dire run over December when we couldn't buy a goal let alone a win. That was followed by an amazing run of wins. At times like these most managers start banging on about 'going back to basics'. Could be what we need to arrest our dip in form. The new signings haven't been given much of a sniff. That would make sense if we were playing well and didn't want to disrupt a winning team, but right now only Saint Mirren are worse than us. If the season had started a couple of months ago we'd be in a relegation dogfight. This is a serious concern looking ahead to next season. The bottom 6 are all improving and we're going backwards.

Phew, when I saw this thread title pop up I thought he'd died or something.

I remember Billy McKay's (now former) boss lining up against us back in division 3.

Brill Raven Warren Meekings Shinnie Draper Tansey Vincent Doran Ofere Williams

On current form we're relegation fodder, so fourth place certainly isn't guaranteed! We can't keep relying on other teams dropping points.

Even game, not much goalmouth action. Collum ruined the game by awarding soft fouls virtually every 30 seconds. Pretty average performances all round (Shinnie apart). Both teams seemed to cancel each other out.

I think there's an easy solution to the geography problem. Split league 2 into north and south. It doesn't make any sense to have small, part time clubs like Brora and Berwick in the same league. Especially in todays financial climate.