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It's been pretty grim being a season ticket holder this season. Only four wins, but dull tactics and mediocre performances in abundance. In the big games against the Old Firm, we've had terrible luck as well. Today was maybe the last chance the players had to produce a big performance and get their names in the papers, as well as give us a rare opportunity to cheer. Last season, against Celtic, the players rose to the occasion.

Today was the complete antithesis of that Celtic match in May.

That was the weakest and most vulnerable Rangers side I have ever seen at TCS, containing several players who couldn't even make their bench last season. And yet they ripped us to shreds whilst barely moving out of second gear. I shudder to think what they could have done to us had they played particularly well.

Not one of the Rangers goals required even a shred of guile or quality - every time it was just one half-decent pass which cut through us like a knife through butter. We were a tactical shambles. I defy anyone to explain what our gameplan was - I simply don't believe there was one. McCoist did his homework and got his attacking players to press us high up the pitch, knowing that we would end up punting high ball after high ball at our 5ft 8in centre forward. When we did get the ball in decent areas, our final ball was almost invariably hopeless in the first half; when we put in a few decent crosses in the second half, our strikers fluffed their lines.

Defensively we were an absolute joke. Could Esson have done better with the fourth? He certainly wasn't culpable for the others, and made one tremendous stop in the second half. Subbing Meekings at half-time was akin to putting down an injured animal. His positioning was terrible and he kept being caught by balls in behind him. His refusal to go beyond the half-way line also meant that Hayes was easily double-teamed whenever he got the ball. As for our other full-back, Graeme Shinnie will have nightmares about Sone Aluko, who just destroyed him. I'm not sure Shinnie managed to tackle him once. Aluko wasn't even that great at Aberdeen; it's galling that he looked so dangerous today. I love Kenny Gillet to bits, but he had a shocker today, to go with a poor performance at East End Park. Williams wasn't great, but he didn't appear obviously responsible for any of the goals we lost, and at least he got one.

It was in midfield that we really lost the game today. Foran was absolutely overrun by Edu and Davis. He got no help from Tansey, who kept giving the ball away even when he wasn't under pressure and who frankly chickened out of several 50-50 balls. What was the point of bringing on Jones with 3 minutes left? Even if he only has one leg, he should be on the pitch from the start. Hayes and Ross tried their hardest but whenever they got the ball they invariably had no support. Tade was utterly wasted out wide in the first half, and only got into it when he moved into the centre.

When McKay got announced as MOTM, I wondered out loud what he'd done to earn that - the response from a guy behind me was that "He's run about a lot". That seems to be fair,and it's a sad indictment of his teammates. To say he fed off scraps would be an understatement. On the rare occasions he got the ball, he had zero support from teammates. I was impressed by the fact he kept trying, even though he bounced off Goian every time.

When was the last time we laid down to an Old Firm team like this? It's not just the lack of quality that worried me, but the lack of fight and the lack of spirit. It's deeply concerning, especially as it's not been the first time this season. I haven't been this disillusioned with ICT since the dying embers of Brewster's second spell. We probably have enough points in the bank to hold off Dunfermline and stay up, but given our recent performances I wouldn't bet my mortgage on it.

As much as I love this club, and as much as I love the banter I get from the folk I sit with, I am seriously questioning the wisdom of renewing my season ticket. £300 a year for this dross? Pull the other one. As far as I'm concerned, the starting 11 and the coach can throw themselves off the Kessock Bridge for all I care.

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Did I watch the same game as people on Twitter and FB. There are people saying we were unlucky, and we played well :ponder:

1st goal- poor pass out of defence and poor control in midfield gave ball to rangers, and from having ball with left back, about 7 seconds later, ball is crossed from left wing passed defender for a goal

2nd goal- weak tacking in midfield then, left back fails to prevent cross, central defender cuts ball out by passing to rangers player, goal

3rd goal-right back caught out rangers player runs past him, then keeper beaten at near post.

4th goal-right back fails to cut out cross, keeper parries ball into middle of the goal, only player close is a rangers player.

5th"goal" we got away with that one!!

Then going forward, well thats an easy one to cover, aimless, clueless,

Not mentioned any players because it would be unfair to single out any 1 player, They all were poor. Maybe Williams was slightly better than poor.

Anyway off to watch another crowd of clueless sportsmen Scotland rugby team. :scotland: :scotland:

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came away from game thinking--------------------

could have hooked any 3 from back 4

meekings too slow and needs more than one touch to get ball under control

shinnie very poor. gets ball, does not drive forward, usually waits for player to come onto him before punting ball away to other team

gillett has the touch of an elephant enough said

thats just the back 4 take too long to go through the rest of the team

the 4 rangers goals were so easy. men against boys

when we got the ball we were so slow in our build up it allowed rangers 2 banks of four to reset making it very difficult to break them down............. wishful thinking on my part

then it was high balls to ross and mackay againt probably the biggest centre back in scotland

after watching the subsitution of tudor-jones changing the game in our favour last week at dunfermline thought he was a certain starter this week. someone who can control the ball with first touch and then find a team mate with a pass.

would have allowed foran to play up front instead of haddie

(when i called him that my 4 year old grandson said " dont you mean baddie" told him baddie and haddie are same thing)

tade today same as usual runs about like a headless chicken, he had two good situations early on in the game only to loose the ball both times. there is absolutely no end product from this guy. yes he will score the odd goal but surely there is more to a footballer than that.

we never looked like scoring from open play today poor poor poor

from now on we should take throwins from wrong place, take from 3 yards inside pitch anything to make ref give it to the other team. we must be the worst team in history both right and left side to take a throwin. why not try just throwing it as far as we can down the line, it cant be any worse can it ??

then when i got home-------------------

we were playing against quality players today and we are a team of rejects from lower league english clubs.

injuries have not allowed us a settled side, back 4 especially

the people on this forum who discuss top six need to get a grip.

"if we can get so many points from next games we can push out dundee utd" and get to the promised land.

what a crock of sh1t.

du are the form team in scotland just now and they have scotlands best player ( could have been ours if tel took a chance on him) as i have said before mackay-steven is jonny hayes with skill who can deliver a ball

tel is always talking top six. i know he is trying to talk up the players, but surely even he does not believe this team with such a poor defensive record and no goal scorer could ever make it.

we need to be looking below not up. starting to wonder now if 8 point gap to the bottom is enough

time will tell

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Agree with just about every comment on here today. A complete waste of time and precious hard earned money. I have two season tickets and I am afraid the novelty of being in the SPL has worn off, I now want some entertainment and commitment, neither of which we have seen for a very long time.

One poster I would disagree with is the one who questionned the MOM award to Mackay. He was our only decent player. He works very hard and much much more importantly is the only player in the squad, not just the team, who can take and hold a ball. Mackays first touch is very good but no more than you would expect from a professional footballer. What on earth do these blokes do in training.

Gutless performance from a bunch of well paid individuals. Really pi**ed off.

One last thing, why does Butcher insist on sitting in the stand until we are 2 or 3 down. Get on to the touchline man and lead................going to have a drink.

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The first half was a culmination of a totally inpet display by the back line and utter lack of confidence in all other areas, evident in the fact that nobody seemed to want to put a foot on the ball and hold it for more than a nano-second...."get rid quick" seemed to be the mantra.

Second half, the back four improved with the introduction of Proctor....partly due to the rest not having to cope with the gaping holes he (Meekings) had been leaving for the first 45 minutes. I'm no Proctor fan, but credit where it is due and he had a decent 45 minutes.

I was waiting, and waiting...and still waiting for OTJ to replace Tansey in the middle, but it never came. Tansey had a couple of nice passes, but for the most part he was mince, and that was made even worse by the fact that someone seems to have put lead insoles in his boots because he chased nothing, kept turning his back on the pass and stood around gurning if the ball wasn't played straight to his feet.

All in all though, I thought the second half was a much improved effort and I disagree with comments about lack of commitment. Tansey aside, the players came off the park at the end knackered from the effort they put in.

Also can't help but think that a lot of the reaction comes from the fact that we believed a bit to much in our own hype this past week in thinking that because of Rangers woes this game would be some kind of walkover for us....under normal circumstances I think we might have disappointed at the result and the nature of the first three goals, but more appreciative of the overall situation and display.

Good to get it out of the system and we move on to preparations for next weeks game.

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Whilst we are all obviously disappointed I think folk on here are being overly harsh and TB, as sadly is often the case, is heaping the blame elsewhere when his own tactical failings were a significant factor.

McCoist had clearly out thought him tactically and the players he brought in did very well. Terry's game plan seemed to be that the longer we could hold out against a Rangers side with fairly limited fire power, the more they would push forward and the more chance our hoofball would work. This is a tried and only occasionally successful tactic and it is not good to watch. It could have worked but it was blown apart after 20 minutes due to a combination of woeful defending from Meekings and the composure of Rangers front line to create and take their chances.

I personally wouldn't criticise the players for effort with the exception of Meekings and Tansey. I thought the rest were all up for it and challenged and harrassed Rangers pretty well. The problem was what they did when they got the ball. The only tactic seemed to either get it wide to Jonny (who was poor in the first half and a lot better in the second) or just hoof it for Tade and MacKay. I thought Tansey was very poor today, Foran was just OK, and Nick Ross seemed to offer a little more potential but Rangers defenders read him very well. Both McKay and Tade huffed and puffed to little effect. McKay had a good first touch but had no options. Tade looked more sluggish than I've seen him - perhaps his achilles tendon is still asleep.

Terry was right to replace Meekings with Proctor. Meekings had a nightmare of a game and I think Proc did OK when he came on and better than Tokely would have done at right back. Having gone three behind and then pulled one back we looked for a time as though a second could very easily come. Had we got a second then we would have had a very nervy Rangers side and it would have been game on. I was therefore suprised when he withdrew Ross and astonished when Gnapka appeared. Immediately there was confusion about who should be where and immediately Rangers exploited the space and were up the park to score. Instead of being game on it was game over.

And then to bring OTJ on right at the end! What was that about? The game was crying out for a bit of quality in midfield and that is just what he can offer. With Tansey being so poor, he could have replaced him at half time. If he is fit enough, he should be starting and if he isn't he should come on for a reasonable stint - but just the last 3 minutes? Baffling.

Yes, Rangers were the better side but I don't think it was a fair reflection of the game. I do think it was a fair reflection of the nouce of the two managers though. And remember, Rangers will have been hurting after the Kilmarnock match and players are playing for their contract. There is no way they were not going to be 100% up for this. Some people seem to think Rangers were there for the taking but that was never going to be the case.

As I say, I cannot fault the effort of the players. Rather than bring them all in for more running around I think Terry should let them keep their day off so that he can study the videos of the game and learn where he got it wrong.

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Agree with Hislopsoffsideagain. Only thing to add was that I left the game early. For those that know me that gives you an indication of just how dismal today was as I have never left a game early before.

With performances like that we can easily go down. Dunfermline will take great heart from that shocking display.

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Agree with Hislopsoffsideagain. Only thing to add was that I left the game early. For those that know me that gives you an indication of just how dismal today was as I have never left a game early before.

With performances like that we can easily go down. Dunfermline will take great heart from that shocking display.

Trust me, things are bad if RiG left early. He's the sort of fan who would sit through the worst Caley performance even if someone had attached electrodes to his nether regions.

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I struggle to believe people are crediting Hayes and Ross with a better game than Tansey. I don't think Tansey played well, not at all. But he was way better than the missing-most-of-the-game Ross and couldn't-cross-the-road Hayes. Those were the two worst players on the park for me.

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Hayes had one or two really good runs in the second half. Apart from that I didn't really notice him. Tansey and Fora in the middle were completely overpowered. Whilst the second goal came from his hurried clearance I would say Gillet was perhaps our best most acceptable performer.

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I didn't expect a win today, just a decent performance. In fact that's what I have been wanting all season. I don't think many will pay to watch another season of mediocre dross from players which we all know can do better. Management and players to blame sort it out.

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Hayes had one or two really good runs in the second half. Apart from that I didn't really notice him. Tansey and Fora in the middle were completely overpowered. Whilst the second goal came from his hurried clearance I would say Gillet was perhaps our best most acceptable performer.

Check out the first goal for Gillett. Williams was our best outfield player I thought. Needed Tokely for a bit of presence and barking orders. Didn't seem to be a team today. I know Tokely had a bad game in his last but better than what was out there I think. But get Jones in midfield and let Foran and Tansey push on. That's what they're best at and that's what Jones is best at.

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What did he do for the first goal? He had two players on him and it looked to me like Williams let his man go, charges towards the ball and then both Rangers players run into the box and were ball side of Gillet who was left marking the two of them whilst Williams tries to track back. I don't think Gillet did much wrong there to be honest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtUoG4SeoGY

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It was poor, but we were playing a team belonging to a club with massive liabilities, questions about asset ownership, and which appears clearly insolvent. Where are the administrators going to find funny money to provide the cash to run the club. It is a club subject to a range of high level investigations. This may have been that club's zenith. This may have been their finest result in a 140 year history. Should they collapse on Tuesday or Wednesday, we will see how they have historically beaten teams like ourselves.

Escaping the goldfish bowl of Glasgow for the fresh air of the Highlands, they had nothing to lose today. Fast forward three or four days and then we can reflect on the result. Terry though must be realistic and unlike a few years back not assume we are virtually safe from relegation.

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meekings the scapegoat for Butchers latest tactical farce, granted he wasnt great but where the feck was Hayes when he was getting roasted.

Was he not meant to be playing wide on the right offered little in the way of cover.

Thought Esson should have done better for at least two of their goals also.

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I struggle to believe people are crediting Hayes and Ross with a better game than Tansey. I don't think Tansey played well, not at all. But he was way better than the missing-most-of-the-game Ross and couldn't-cross-the-road Hayes. Those were the two worst players on the park for me.

Stop protecting Tansey, he has been useless practically all season. Came here with a reputation for banging home spectacular free kicks and long range efforts, and well, I'm still waiting. 99% of his free kicks have been atrocious. His corners more often hit the first defender, ( not alone there) and very little exciting happens when he is on the ball. He has had maybe two games where he was better than average and other than that, not worth staying here for another season.

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We were very poor today.

I travelled as far as most of the huns today, to to watch this inept performance.

The question i ask is:

are we too comfortable with the tax dodgers?

after all the boss is/was/still is one of them.

there was lots of cuddles etc going on.

when we play the other team from glasgow, we have bit of bite about us.

Whilst recognising they are good teams we are always crap against the dodgers.

The team was set up completely wrong and it was obvious to all in the north stand after 20 mins, yet nothing was done by the management....................

seriously unhappy with the management performance today...

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meekings the scapegoat for Butchers latest tactical farce, granted he wasnt great but where the feck was Hayes when he was getting roasted.

Was he not meant to be playing wide on the right offered little in the way of cover.

Thought Esson should have done better for at least two of their goals also.

agreed

we didn't have a right midfielder today and it cost us 2 goals. jonny is not a midfielder,

butcher/malpas failed to recognise this.

meekings was awful but he had no cover.

he was often exposed 2 against 1.

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Well that was disappointing. Not for the first time this season the team has frozen when the TV cameras show up.

I was about to slag the tactics today but that would have been to recognise that there was any. Shinnie and Meekings were poor but to be honest they were hung out to dry, where were our wide men when Rangers attacked? I lost count of the number of times Rangers managed to get 2 on 1 against our full backs. It does say something though when Proctor made a huge improvement to our back four when he came on. Any idea whats happened to Piermayer? He was playing solidly and then all of a sudden he's out.

I think some of the comments on Tansey are a bit harsh, he got the ball down and tried to keep on the deck at times which is more than can be said for some. Himself and Foran were just completely outgunned with Davis, Edu and also McCulloch dropping back in. TB should have recognised this sooner and hooked Ross to bring in OTJ - Whats the point in taking him on with 2 mins left? Mackay actually did ok with the c**p he was being served up, what he's supposed to do with a ball a foot above his head and up against the mutant Goian I don't know.

I have to say I'm fairly disillusioned with whats going on at the minute. There's just no long term planning, we can't build anything with signing 10 players each summer on short term deals. Where the hells the long term vision for the club?

On a final note, we've probably been harshly done with the admin situation at Rangers in that they've managed to go through 2 weeks without having to bin any of their playing staff. In the coming weeks it's likely that their opponents will be playing a skeleton team unlike ourselves. For all the talk of this being a weak Rangers side they still fielded 9 full internationals (Perry & Aluko both being u21 internationsl) and the starting line up still have a weekly wage bill of £120k per week.

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It may surprise some but players and management of different clubs are often friends outside of football like it or not.

Also, we have a much better record against Rangers than we do against Celtic.

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Just a horrible, demoralising performance today.

We created little and defended shoddily, happended too many times this season and Rangers despite all their off field troubles cruised to that victory with ease. I dread to think how much we wouldve conceded had Rangers carried on pressing. I was actually about to walk when Williams headed home but i still couldnt see us clawing our way back, though we did come close with McGregor making some good saves from Tade but the best time to score wouldve been just after half time and unfortunately that chance went and left. We were so narrow in our approach and with Hayes been the only real outlet too much is expected from him i think.

I had alot of sympathy for Billy McKay, he got next to no service but i thought he worked hardest more than anyone and whenever he had the ball with his back to goal he held it up well and looked to get it out wide, hope he gets a wee bit more of a run in the team.

Time for Tokely to come back in. He's had one bad game this season and was crucified for it but since he has been dropped the defence has only deterioated so time to shake things up.

Its important we put this performance out of our minds asap. We dont want to start looking down the table again but we will if we play like that. So come on guys, we know your better than this.

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