Jaggernaut

Strachan came on late in the game, 88th minute, he was the sub for Deas, who it turned out had a broken leg. He only had a few minutes of the game plus injury time, but he slotted in at left back to allow Delaney to switch to left centre back, and he just safely played his passes, but he blocked a certain goal going in very late in the game. So although he had so little time, he looked quite assured and calm when on the ball.

I also thought the situation with Ridgers was strange, you really only send your reserve keeper out to warm up, if there seems to be an injury problem with the on field keeper. We had a collective, 'ooooooo' moment in the stand, when it happened, and someone stated that Dodds was trying to display a show of strength! Was it because Ridgers never saved the goal? Because it was right after we conceded, if it was, it isn't good for team morale, these are things that should be kept in house, back in the dressing room

I said to my son before kick off that I'd take a draw, considering our horrendous injury list, so I've no complaints with the point. We certainly ground out the point, with a fantastic goal from Robbie Deas, he was disappointed that he didn't score last season, so at least now he's off the mark, but his injury late in the game looked a bad one, so I hope he is not added to the long injury list long term. All we would need now is for a keeper to pick up an injury and we'd have an injury eleven! I thought Robbie Deas was immense in defence, and scored that wonderful goal, Billy Mckay worked his socks off, and some of his close control and shielding of the ball was very impressive, if he could only have got a goal as a birthday present. Delaney for me, has been our best new signing this season, and put in another good display, and a word for our central midfield duo, Harper and Hyde, considering that you wouldn't have thought they'd be our CM's at the beginning of the season, I thought they gave everything they had, and stuck to their task valiantly. If we can keep grinding points out with our threadbare squad, just think how good we could be when we have everyone back and fit. And a special mention for the late sub Strachan, the team had to readjust again, and he never put a foot wrong, and he protected our valuable point with an outstanding block, when I was convinced that it would be a late winner for Raith. So on to Morton on Friday now, so let's hope that one or two of our injury list will be eased, and we can bring the points back up the A9.

I could believe the amount of times Oakley was fouled today, without getting much from the ref. He was man handled, shirt pulled and brought down, without getting any of the 50/50's, so he did well in holding anything up.

They should be in politics, it's a good piece of spin.

Is it just a coincidence that our home form and the absence of the famed ICT mascot Lionel Nessi are connected. I may be wrong, but I can't recall him in attendance at any of our games this season. Where has he gone? He is our talisman, he's our 12th man, and the kids love him, they flock to him whenever he was out, doing his dance routines pre match. Has he gone the same way of the match day programme? Or is he hiding, like the raffle ticket sellers? Or has he been sold to a rival for an undisclosed fee? Or in our case for nothing! Or is it just another nail in the coffin of the 'so called' match day experience! We had one of the most best club mascots, mixing one of the most famous iconic world football names with one of the world's most iconic myths, so my advice to ICT is, get Lionel Nessi back, and start winning at home again.

You can always tell when ICT have had a stinker, Billy Dodds post match video takes ages to be aired, or at all, when we've been beaten, while it's out after a few hours when we win. That's the third game I've watched this season when the teams we were supposed to be better than, Morton, Brechin and Hamilton, have had a far better passing game than ours. None of them just kept booting the ball up the park, hoping that maybe something might happen, no, they try and play football. I've heard the excuses of injured players not being available, but surely it's a basic need for any player that plays for a professional team to be able to pass the ball to a team-mate, something we seem to be devoid of. Dodds said before the season started that he was happy with the squad he had, and that there were battles for places in the first eleven all over the park, but, as I have said before, we have a very good first eleven, and after that we are very ordinary. I feel that this was one of our best chances of promotion, as we are on par with most of the teams around us, but, I fear we will lose out again. If we win against our rivals for the title and get beaten at home by the bottom team, who were more game savy, and were the better team, it is not title winning credentials. Good teams find ways to win, or at least not to get beaten.

That was one of the worst performances from us for quite some time, there were no positives to take from this game, apart from it's over. Yes, we had injured players missing, but we showed nothing apart from our default setting of 'hoofball' rearing it's head for most of the game. Hamilton were by far the better team, they passed the ball better and created the better chances. We seem to be back to our way of beating the better teams and dropping points against teams in the bottom half of the table. Dodds, is no tactician. He wasn't very animated on the touchline, so I take it that he was quite happy playing hoofball! He really needed to start with the best eleven on the park, get a hold of the game, and then defend it. What was Billy Mckay doing on the bench? Was Welsh fit enough? If not, why was he on the bench when the game was crying out for a player to take a hold of the midfield. More injuries today, is there a problem with our training methods or do we just sign injury prone players that no-one else wants? We need to now work out a plan for Saturday, to not get beaten again, we had the chance to go top today, and blew it big time.

Superb three points, especially when it looks like there were a couple of injuries. I was watching the scores come through on BBC Final Score, which was very nervy when we were only one goal to the good, but it proved to be good enough in the end. On to Tuesday night now against Hamilton, so let's not fall into the trap of taking the bottom club lightly, as we have tended to do on some occasions, and drop points, let's treat them the same way we treated Partick, and play at high intensity and fight for every ball, then, top of the league will be the reward.

A superb three points, to add to our nine we won on the road previously, I hope that this is the start of our winning streak, that can keep us in the title hunt. Every player gets pass marks from me tonight, but I thought Billy, Dan, Scott and Robbie were the picks for me. I agree, I thought the referee had a good game, he let the play flow, and you didn't notice him too much, the sign of a ref who's in control, McColl is just a bitter little man. Note to myself, I really need to re-examine my winter wardrobe, or put on another few layers, it was freezing, and it's only October!

Couldn't agree more, I have said on numerous sites that the league is too small, there is no mid section, you are either fighting for promotion or relegation, you can be in the bottom three one week and nudging into the top six the next. All the fans I have spoken to would want bigger leagues, so we only played our opponents home and away, and only met them again if we were drawn in cup competitions. The TV companies, who want four Glasgow derbies certainly wouldn't want only two certain derbies to show on tv, so it's up to the rest of the leagues to try and show a united front to get change.

In my opinion, if we ever manage to get promotion again, we would tend to be a yoyo club. I don't think we have the resources or Premier player pulling power to sustain a place in the top flight. When we were last in the Premier league, after we won the Scottish Cup, that was the time to push on, but we didn't, we've regressed. We couldn't keep that squad together, and most of the players that were brought in just didn't match up to the ones we lost. That was our golden era at the club, and fear we will never see the likes again, all the planets aligned then, and if we couldn't attract a better quality of player and increase our attendances after coming third in the league, winning the Scottish Cup and playing in Europe, when will we. County are a different fish, they have the financial pulling power, and teams like St Mirren and Livingston are in the central belt and most Scottish players don't want to relocate their whole family North for what might be a two years contract, we couldn't even hold on to thirty-eight year old Broadfoot, who was travelling up and back on his own from the South. I agree with Dougal, I can see us going the way of Arbroath, as year after year that we remain in the championship, the more our resources and talent are depleted. We are not alone, bigger clubs than us, with much bigger fan bases and pulling power are struggling in leagues below us, Dunfermline and Falkirk being two, and to a lesser extent, our opponents last Saturday, Brechin City, were our league rivals a few seasons ago, before dropping down and down until they eventually ended up in the Highland League. And with the Highland League now attracting former Scottish League players to their ranks, with the likes of our former players, Meekings, Warren, Mchattie and Mcdonald, who probably earn more from their day jobs and football money than we could pay them as full time pros, we are on a hiding to nothing. The times are changing, ambitious Highland and Lowland league club can now offer better packages to players and are gaining good sponsorship and are becoming more professional. This for me is the season we must get promotion, or I can see us going the Arbroath way, being a good championship club with dwindling attendances and sponsorship, looking for Highland League players, like we used to.

I believe it was 832.

That was a really poor display, and we were lucky to get it to penalties in the end. Brechin are going well in the Highland League, so they are used to winning, and, I thought they had a far better passing game than ours. I don't think we take this tournament seriously enough, there's no point in going into a competition if you don't want to win it, so we should have started with a much stronger team, and once we had a foothold in the game, introduce the youth players. Some of the subs and formations that ict ended up playing was mind boggling. Does Dodds have something against young Hyde? He gave him and Harper too much responsibility at CM, and then stuck him back in his nightmare position at right back! And we seem to be back to our ponderous best again, passing in back and fore across the back four, going nowhere, allowing Brechin to regroup, while they were hitting us fast on the counter attack. We really need to be more direct, our default position, when we receive the ball, seems to be to turn back and pass back, instead of turning and running at them. I have said for a few seasons now that we have an acceptable first eleven, but after that, we are pretty ordinary, so we aren't good enough to make the wholesale changes that we made today. I really believe in keeping a winning team going, and with our away trip to Ayr next week, we should have used this game to boost our confidence and form, but I fear it achieved neither of those things.

Yea, he was booked for kicking the ball away just as the Brechin player was going to pick it up for a quick throw in, while our defence wasn't ready, he took one for the team.

I thought some of our home attendances in the championship were bad, and probably our match against Brechin City won't attract many, but some clubs are doing worse than us, Cove Rangers last home attendance was 661. Perhaps the Brechin City game could have been one of those 'pay what you like' games, to see if the club could attract the occasional supporter to hopefully like what they see, and come to a league game.

Good shout, going by the number of times they can't find the net in the warm up!

I didn't see the game tonight, but it's what I expected. We have the majority of possession in most games, but it's what you do with that possession that matters, and in most cases we just pass it back and forth across the back four, then, once we let the opposition get back into their shape, we revert to Hoofball and their centre backs gobble it up! Gone are the days of hitting teams hard and fast, before they can get organised. If I recall correctly, Dodds said at the start of the season that, he was happy with his new recruits, getting all the targets he was looking for and getting them in early, well, going by what I have seen this season, he must look for something different in a player than I do, because none of them have shown me anything to get me excited about. We have regressed badly from last season, yes,I know we have injuries, but Dodds has repeatedly stated that he is happy with the squad, so the other players should come in and grab the shirt, but it's just so passionless dull football that is served up. Let's be honest, we get the majority of players that nobody else wants, players who are looking to relight their careers, it has worked in the past, but I fear, it won't be this season. My only hope is that we can get some loan signings in like last season, because, let's be honest, Logan Chalmers and Reece Mcalear were quality players for us, and it's quality that we are sadly lacking at the moment in time. As for folk talking about getting rid of Dodds, that is cloud cuckoo land, the club does not have the finances to pay him off and hire a new coach, that nearly crippled the club a few seasons ago. The only way that will happen is if he had a better offer from someone else, and I just can't see that happening, but if it did happen, I would like to see the whole coaching team changed, a new fresher outlook is needed, everything is just so stale. Maybe we will batter Raith on Saturday, and we will kick on and bask in the sunny uplands! But I won't be holding my breath.

I said the same thing to my son, why do we continually pass it back and forth across the back four after we gain control of the ball, instead of hitting them hard and fast before they get back into position. I also think that Macgregor has gone backwards, sometimes you forget he's playing. I remember there was some talk about him on Sportsound I think, some time ago, think it was Alan Preston or some other pundit, and they were basically saying that Macgregor would be the next one to get a big move, and since then his form seems to have dipped. Maybe it's the absence of Welsh, who along with Allardice, were the best middle three, who knows. If we are going to persist playing Hoofball, then we should have signed a target man, not Oakley, that's not his game, and as for the lack of full backs, that just looks like Dodds doesn't think this is a very important position, anyone can fill in at full back in his world.

It would be nice to know what they do training? They were horrendous in the first half, and they come out and play the same tactics in the second half, that's up to Dodds to change things. In my opinion, his lineup was wrong and playing three forward players was wrong.

Well, that was horrendous. I really believe now that Dodds has no idea how to set up and inspire a team. There was no energy, no pace, no desire, no leadership, no tactics, unless you count the hopeful hoofball that the team likes to play. Getting into the playoffs saved Dodds job last season, he may not be as lucky this term. We need points fast, as other teams are pulling away from us, and we aren't too big a club to struggle in this league, just ask Falkirk and Dunfermline.

Cheers lads, another very entertaining hour and forty four minutes. Just watched Ayr beat Dundee, so we really need the three points against Morton, or they will be six points ahead of us this early in the season.

The work rate and desire to win this game must be improved in bucket fulls from the Partick showing, we looked ponderous and second to every ball. And I agree, we need to win the midfield battle, and if that means taking a more attacking player out , then that's what we have to do. Three points are a must after Ayr's great win tonight.

In times gone by, a draw would have been OK, as it was only two points for a win, but when you drop two points now, it's a significant amount. A few draws compared with other teams gaining three, can have them stretching their lead over us, even at this early stage in the season. Consistency is a real factor for any teams who have designs on promotion, having a great 4-1 win one week, and a disastrous 4-1 loss the next is not a team showing promotion form. Let's get three points on Saturday, by upping the work rate and desire, and lets have more shots on goal, far too many sideways passes when near the box, take a gamble, have a shot, who knows where it will end up, a deflection, a corner or maybe even.....a goal!

Can someone tell me the logic of sending players out on loan, when we don't have enough numbers to have a full bench of substitutes?