Hearts -V- ICT : Matchday Thread

[Sloth]

According to Meekings Twitter he was taken off due to a dead leg.

[tm4tj]

[Caley Mad In Berks]

I notice Sutherland came on in the 90th minute. What on earth is the point of that?

Won't be long before the knives are out for Butcher at this rate!

[Pele_Is_God]

Okay....we looked quite good going forward and at times especially in the first half we looked like a right good team. HOWEVER when hearts scored their 2nd the heads went down and like at the start of the season, there's not a lot of fight in the team. We lack a bit of bite in the midfield area(this isn't a moan about Duncan leaving) and we need to sort out the central defence pairing as Hogg/tokely doesn't work.

[Yngwie]

As Mantis said, this game was there for the taking and its disappointing that we took nothing from it. Both sides played some pretty neat football given the really strong wind and it was a pretty open and attacking game. We were never under the cosh, and the goals we conceded just seemed too easy. How often do we say that? Grrrr.

Tade was not having one of his better days. Full of energy and running as ever, but I thought his touch, composure, positioning and reading of the game were particularly poor. I would have taken him off before Shinnie, who seemed our biggest goal threat.

And as for the uncontested drop ball - BOOOO, CHEATS!

[+Wanderer]

Tade was not having one of his better days...his touch, composure, positioning and reading of the game were particularly poor.

Quelle surprise! Bin him.

[AJS]

Two very different performances either side of half time. 1st half had us attacking Hearts on several occasions, Tade getting his routine 1 on 1 that he passed up and Shinnie cracking the side netting with a great turn and shot. For most of the first half Hearts huffed and puffed but produced very little and Tokely and Meekings in paticular were producing some solid performances, Meekings was especially composed at dealing with Templeton.

2nd half the good old crap defending returned in an astonishing 15 seconds approx. Couple of passes, one punt and suddenly Skacel has all the space and time he needed with everybody looking at each other wondering what went wrong, eejits. We struggled on but won a free kick which was well dispatched by Jonny with Rosscoe catching on his head very nicely. The problem was though we failed to build on the equaliser. Hearts began pressing more and more and sadly Proctor came on just to confuse matters and make life easier for Templeton and then a few moments later Hearts win the game with Jonsson having all the space needed to head home.

Points go to Tokely, Meekings and Esson. Tokely gave a solid display at the back, winning his fair share and probably cheesed of with what surrounded him. Also grabbed his goal very nicely. Meekings seems to have a wise head on those young shoulders. Today was a big test for him against Templeton and i thought he coped very well and it was only when he went off that we began to struggle at the back. Think Terrys made a decent find there. Esson also did his best to keep Hearts at bay was again let down by others around him.

My qualms for the day go to our midfield who tryed far too hard to impress, Davis looked lost, Tansey got it wrong alot and Tade got very little service and more often than not was feeding of punts. Another goes to the overall quality of our defence. Hogg and Gillet were poor but i know for a fact they can both do better, but we need better quality brought in during January. It baffles me that our managment team is made up of internationally decorated defenders that cant even patch together 1 clean sheet in 16 games.

Edited November 26, 2011 by ajsict92

[lukemackay]

the good:

esson, meekings, tokely, and a.shinnie were all superb today imo

esson done what esson does another sterling performance one of the best keepers in the spl

tokely was defending for 2 today and he got a goal. hogg was not at the races so credit to tokely for keeping the defense in order

meekings vs templeton= 1-0 to josh done a great job to keep him quiet looks a good signing

a.shinnie looked our most threatening player goal scoring wise forced kello to make 2-3 good saves

the average:

hayes was not himself decision making was poor and he didnt look confident enough to take on their left back but did still give hearts something to think about and his set piece delivery was decent

tansey didnt have his best game wasnt a bad performance by any means but missplaced passes and trying to hard to find the perfect pass failed him

tade finishing was poor, worked the hearts defense, should of got a penalty, typical tade still love him though

foran his usual keep the ball but go nowhere trick he seemed to have hamill for pace somhow though, (get down the gym fatboy)

kenny gillet fairly solid possibly at fault for their first goal

the poor:

david davis just seemed to walk into trouble whenever he got the ball worst performance in an ict shirt from him but hes been brilliant thus far for us so il let him off

hogg likewise he struggled against sutton today he seesms to get sucked in to easily think he needs an out an out holding midfeilder in front of him its just as well tudor-jones is back training the sooner he get back the better

the subs:

proctor: ahhh

nick ross: good to see him back

shane: 2 minutes of trying to beat a 6ft 4 centre back in the air

not clinical enough and not good enough as a unit at the back

[Renegade]

What I can't understand is no-matter what manager it is at ICT, Proctor always seems to get a game. I don't rate him at all!

[+Gringo]

I was listening to the game on line and as soon as they said Meekings was going off for Proctor I said 'That's that then, we've lost this one'. :irritated:

[alternative maryhill]

hayes was not himself decision making was poor and he didnt look confident enough to take on their left back

I was actually quite impressed with Hayes yesterday. It did look like he thought the Hearts left back had the measure of him and didn't take him on directly that often, but I thought he adapted his game well to counteract that, moving inside and looking for little passes and lay-offs. In the past, for all his ability, he could be frustrating by hogging the ball a bit too much, but I think he has matured and added more to his game.

Agree about Meekings - he was excellent. I think it was him who made an absolutely tremendous block on Skacel about halfway through the second half to prevent him from getting through on goal - I wondered if that was where he got his dead leg. Don't think Davis was too bad despite a couple of misplaced passes, but Foran really looked off the pace - I'm not sure who in the current squad would replace him but in the long term Butcher surely has to start thinking about this, unless it's just that he's not fully fit at the moment.

Now have to try to assemble a match report out of my very hazy memories - not helped by the fact that the first ten minutes were spent queueing outside the ground... Decent away support though - just wish there had been more to cheer about.

[Ten4]

Proctor getting slated again maybe he was following instructions/not warmed up feel a bit sorry he getting lambasted by some- I thought Esson couldve made a better effort at Skacel goal

[finmack]

I was listening to the game on line and as soon as they said Meekings was going off for Proctor I said 'That's that then, we've lost this one'. :irritated:

Agree with above. I certainly think Proctor is a liabilty in the team.

[PaderbornCaley]

Another frustrating peformance. I was also disapointed / surprised that Meekings came off. Not sure if it was Proctors fault for the goal, but he is often the scape goat far too often. Most players were poor yesterday for the full 90 minutes. If Meekings was struggling with a dead leg, then fair enough, the change had to be made. More baffling is the subsitution that occured within the 2 minutes of stoppage time at the end of the game! All that is going to do is time waste! Bizarre!

I thought Meekings and Tokely were superb yesterday. Meekings for only 19 looks so composed and I think he will turn out to be a fantastic signing. No one else really stood out for me and we probably deserved a draw, on the basis that Hearts didn't deserve 3 points either.

On another note, did we have a big support yesterday or was it just too small a space?! I can never tell! People queing outside the stadium with the 1 turnstyle, fans sitting on steps because they couldn't find seats lol. Hearts underestimated our support and could have done with the barrier being moved along a few rows. They probably should have done this when folk were having to cross the barrier. There were a few folk standing in the space of 1 seat as well. I hope we bring the same size of support to Paisley away next week!

However, on a more darker tone, there was no need at all for the Hillsborough chants that some started in relation to this. We certainly do not need that.

Edited November 27, 2011 by CapitalCaley

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Agree with the large majority of comments on here - lets face it before the game we would mostly have gone with the starting X1 and the formation but the substitutions simply didnt make sense. I sincerely hope that Meekins was injured but Proctor was the wrong choice - I would have gone for Cox, wee Shinnie or even Ross. I dont know why we didnt change it earlier as Tansey, Foran and Tade were ineffective with Davis having an off day - putting Shane on so late was nonsense - Ross and Shane should have come on neare the hour mark.

Will wait fer the highlights but I thought that Rosscoe and/or Hogg were sleeping - and for the last one and not going 2:1 for a corner was schoolboy stuff - was it Proctor ?

I also thought that Hayes was decent - there are such high expectations of him but the support still have a sense of anticipation when he moves forward.

I really am more concerned about Tansey as he just has summat lacking and he doesnt really gel with Davis - I would like to see Ross back in there.

I really dont think that Foran is 100% fit and he will struggle in left midfield if he is. Perhaps this was one of the reasons for playing him up front. As fer Tade - wait for it - I feel a bit sorry for him - I feel that he was standing out when we played a system where his duty was to run and harry all over the front line. He now has Hayes, Foran and Shinnie covering further up the park and he has been playing more in a more traditional striker role which isnt his forte.

I also thought that we became more defensively set up in the second half. I wasnt complaining as I though that we could spring summat on the break - but when we went 2-1 own it appeared that we could not readjust and the boost" of a more attacking sub never arrived.

It did feel / look like a better crowd but I thought that we were more compacted than usual.

Both Rosscoe and Terry mentioned it after the game - we need to keep clean sheets, we need to cut out the silly errors at the back and we need to take more of our chances. That is a big ask when we dont have a astute, commanding central defender and we dont have a striker.

Having said that I would give Tokely MOM by a country mile with Shinnie, Meekins and Hayes the best of the rest.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Just watched the highlights - first goal was great movement from Skacel and not Rosscoe's fault - perhaps Gillet got dragged out of position. As fer the second - that really was a defensive disaster - Hayes was clearly looking for the second covering defender - it looked like Gillet was at the front rite back post and Proctor was in the middle - why ??

[lukemackay]

Just watched the highlights - first goal was great movement from Skacel and not Rosscoe's fault - perhaps Gillet got dragged out of position. As fer the second - that really was a defensive disaster - Hayes was clearly looking for the second covering defender - it looked like Gillet was at the front rite back post and Proctor was in the middle - why ??

im presuming that proctor was getting used in the middle as an aerial pressence

gillet looked caught in 2 minds from where i was sitting he looked to sort of go towards it a yard and then stopped ad decided to go back towards jonnsonn but it was to late and the ball was in the back of the net

not a good day for gillet either yesterday

[tm4tj]

If Hearts goals were defensively poor, then our goal was the pick of the bunch with nobody picking up Rossco as he stooped to head the ball home.

Gillet seemed to be the marker missing for the first and no challenge from Hogg on Sutton as he knocked the long ball forward. The second, well Eggy is standing alone, sloppy all round to be honest.

[gingerjaggy]

Agree entirely. first i was one of the of the many outside for the first 10 minutes. They had a turnstille for the cash and a turnstille for ticket only but i only saw a few people walk in with a ticket most people were paying at the gate. I find it remarkable that they didnt just allow people throught the ticket only to speed things up. As for the game decent affair but we have to be disappointed not to win because the goals was our own doing. Just a hoof could cause major problems and skacel 1-0 to easy! Then we get back into it and suddenly we have a light to push towards but we suddenly lost composure and let hearts on to us. It is interesting that people are blaming proctor for the marking. I didnt spot that but the problem i have is why was it just johhny hayes who went out to the hearts players. Leaving him alone and 2 on 1 situation is criminal so thats where i was angered. After that we made no impression and ended up losing against a pretty poor hearts team. But on wards and up wards roll on St Mirren next week

[PaderbornCaley]

Agree entirely. first i was one of the of the many outside for the first 10 minutes. They had a turnstille for the cash and a turnstille for ticket only but i only saw a few people walk in with a ticket most people were paying at the gate. I find it remarkable that they didnt just allow people throught the ticket only to speed things up.

I presume the reason that they didn't open the cash gate was they had no money float. If they let people in there, they would need exact change only, and then it would start to get messy! I think for next time, they will have 2 cash gates if they learn from their mistakes.