AlexJones

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.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32112666 So John Barnes is playing the race card. Apparently his revolutionary 4-2-2-2 formation, abysmal signings, losing the dressing room, and getting knocked out of the Scottish Cup by (then) lowly Inverness, aren't the reason his managerial career hit the buffers, it's institutional racism. Do me a favour luv!

It's a bit unedifying to see a club run up almost £30,000,000 of debts, go into admin, stiff their creditors, then come straight back to the top league one year later and start using their chequebook to lure other teams players. Hey ho, cheats never win eh?

On a side note, when it comes to maximizing revenue, couldn't we go down the English League Cup semi route, i.e. 2 legs home and away? That's as neutral as you can get, and brings in more cash. A sell out Celtic Park, and a sell out TCS. Plus double the TV revenue. Just an idea!

Hopefully Gary Warren being played further forward. I can see him being a beast in midfield.

You have to question why they went out and paid a transfer fee for a player coming to the end of his contract, then just stuck him in the reserves. Barmy decision. He was on red hot form when he arrived, now he'll probably need a run of games just to get match fit.

When are we going to get rid of these shower of b*****s running our game? Choosing Edinburgh as a 'neutral' venue for Hearts 2 years in a row. Now 2 Sunday midday kickoffs in a row for travelling northern fans. Whether it's incompetence, bias or spite, enough is enough.

It's not just an affront to sporting integrity, it actually ruins a game. Both Chelsea and PSG have squads full of wonderful footballers, but their encounter on Tuesday night was almost unwatchable because of the relentless cheating and anti-football. Quite frankly, I'd rather watch The Only Way is Essex with the other half than that kind of tosh. If it gets any worse, casual TV fans will start tuning out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31803183 Yogi Hughes not the only one calling out United for their cheating.

It's time to stop talking about a 4G pitch and actually invest in one for next season. It would pay for itself. - Year long revenue stream from hiring it to the public - No need to hire alternative venues for training, U20 or Youth games - No Games cancelled due to frozen or waterlogged pitches

Places more likely to be overcrowded than a Scottish football match... - Scotty and the Skyhooks at The Ironworks - Johnny Foxes on a Saturday night - The Eastgate Centre on Black Friday - The Wines and Spirits aisle at Tesco Extra I don't think we have much to worry about!

21 years ago...http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/one-ballot-puts-highland-clubs-a-league-apart-thistle-county-achieve-goal-gala-day-ends-in-depression-1.724581