Matchday Thread ICT -V- St Johnstone

[donald]

Rossco must stay - he has consistently been our best defender and just does what is required - nothing fancy, but that is all that is needed. He always gives his all every game as well, while I fully agree with A96 in that some others just don't have the true Caley Thistle spirit.

Just a thought - why don't we get Robbo in to give our forwards some coaching in how to score a goal - or even how to hit a shot actually on target and at least make the goalkeeper work.

[SMEE]

You lot must be deluded. According to Alex everything is "working well" for ICT

No, sorry friend but you are the deluded one if you can take the statement your referring to and turn it into the statement your making. And just for you I'll reproduce my original below. Please note the word If at the beginning of my sentence.

If everything is working well with this team you can be assured SMEE will come along and throw a spanner in the works. I do wonder, considering he's forever telling us how he can't get to games due to children, how many performances he's actually seen.

Now, obviously you need help in the translation here so let me decipher.

If the world was black SMEE would say it was white.

But i came along and posted a message, in response to a thread. So obviously, you must be thinking everything is " working well" to make that statement you made.

Id rather be a realist Alex, than be a happy clapping, rose tinted spectacle wearing, wired to the moon individual like you and a few others are on here. Thankfully Dunfermline have an exceptionally poor home record, otherwise, we could well have been the team going down. So if you class that as "Everything is working well" well...more fool you ya ***

Edited March 29, 2012 by SMEE

[CaleyD]

Get a room and keep the personal crap off the forum guys....thanks.

[SMEE]

Oh...and another thing Alex.....i think you will find that your views about me are a bit one sided.....for im on occasion, on here, praising the team on the ODD occasion i feel it is merited, which hasnt been very often this season. At least im blessed with the ability to take in the whole picture, rather than pick and choose the parts im going to mention.

Oh....and im far from alone in thinking the team has been dire.....just read thro the matchday threads on here. The majority seem to indicate all is not well

Edited March 29, 2012 by SMEE

[RiG]

Did people notice that Tansey was actually playing further forward than usual last night? Foran and Tudor - Jones were the defensive midfielders and Tansey pitched up in front of them. However more often than not it was Foran who broke furthest forward of the three to support our lone striker.

Edited March 29, 2012 by RiG

[starchief]

It's funny how so many people were saying that Tokely is no longer good enough for the SPL and that's he's 4th or 5th choice before this game. Now, he's a must pick and absolutely has to be here next season. Tokely is the New Duncan.

[SMEE]

It's funny how so many people were saying that Tokely is no longer good enough for the SPL and that's he's 4th or 5th choice before this game. Now, he's a must pick and absolutely has to be here next season. Tokely is the New Duncan.

One swallow does not a summer make.....unless your of a siimilar mindset to certain posters on here

Edited March 29, 2012 by SMEE

[ICTPaisley]

It's funny how so many people were saying that Tokely is no longer good enough for the SPL and that's he's 4th or 5th choice before this game. Now, he's a must pick and absolutely has to be here next season. Tokely is the New Duncan.

People were saying this about tokely in just about every league we've played in. Rosscoe will live forever!

[bishbashbosh]

sorry to go on about this but tel had scotlands best young player in his grasp- mackay steven but decided not to take the chance. the boy was desperate to stay at ict

he is now too good for united. watch him go next season down in england or even at the old firm.

And he had a terrible injury record. So bad that when he played one non-competitive game (which he wasn't even able to finish), he was then out for months. Depsite this, ICT still offered him a pay-as-you-play contract. GMS was so hesitant about his ability to play any significant amount of games, that he turned us down. He had no interest, we must assume, for any team in the SPL and SFL1 to end up at Airdrie.

If we had signed him, he would probably have been in the treatment room and recupuration for most of the season. He'd then be coming back towards the end of a one-year contract with possibly some fine performances. I then suspect he'd reward that faith in him with a 'next season down in england or even at the old firm'.

ICT saw the talent. Saw the injury record (that was ongoing) but were still prepared to offer him a chance at SPL football by a play/pay contract to prove his fitness. It was absolutely the correct decision.

maybe so but we still lost the most exciting player to emerge in scotland for some time.

superb winger with pace to burn, has a trick to pass players - just ask dave mackay at sj, who also delivers excellent crosses. listning to radio on saturdays no one talks about his injuries just the boy is pure class. if we had taken a chance on him we probably would not have kept him past the winter transfer window anyway.

wait and see what he goes for when the bigger clubs start calling du

but six months of watching him on the wing or the crap i have watched this seaon.

hmmmm let me think about that for a second

[+DoofersDad]

Just a thought - why don't we get Robbo in to give our forwards some coaching in how to score a goal - or even how to hit a shot actually on target and at least make the goalkeeper work.

He might even get a game.

[+DoofersDad]

It was interesting seeing the highlights on the BBC website (if you can bear). To me I can't see Tade did anything to warrant a penalty being awarded. You dont see the whole of the Tansey incident but that certainly looks more of a penalty than the one that was given. Claude's strike was great technique and unlucky not to find the target. We didn't get the rub of the green but then we didn't deserve it either.

[Jay_7]

Rossco may well have put in a man of the match performance. Wasn't Djebi-Zadi capable of a similar performance? The problem was, all his other performances guaranteed shipped goals. Tokely is a massive liability, I've lost count of the number of mistakes he's made this season and last season that either led to a goal, a penalty, or both.

The happy clapping on here is absolutely repulsive. Reduced prices or not, if folk are doing their best to take positives from the pish that I wasted my money on last night, then here's some negativity for you. The more bargain basement signings, incapable of playing football and by that I mean the kind of productive football that people are prepared to pay good money to see, then the closer this club is getting to regular sub-3000 attendances. The club can dress it up however they want and include season tickets in the attendances etc, but there's absolutely no way that there was over 3000 there on Wednesday night.

Here's a healthy dose of reality for those who are just waiting with baited breath to accuse me of being negative. If by some monumentally sized stroke of luck (because that's what it'll be... Luck. Not some master stroke by Butcher, just plain luck) that we finish above the relegation spot this season, and if I'm right about Butchers signing policy (which isn't a kick in the arse away from Brewsters signing policy) then County will see us as being the source of 12 VERY easy points next season. That, ladies and gentlemen is realism, not negativity.

[Guest Mahonio]

I call it negativity, tough what you think.

[Jay_7]

I call it negativity, tough what you think.

Call it what you like. Face, bothered?

I'll still attend the derby games next season, if we make it. But I'll be content knowing that I'm not being fleeced of my hard earned, listening to empty pre-season promises.

Edited March 29, 2012 by Jay_7

[ict123]

It's probably fear of sitting next to people like you that prevent a lot of people from coming down to watch us, thus contributing to our dwindling support. I often find myself sitting next to your type at matches, the sort of people who only go to games to vent their spleen and shout and bawl at grown men without the unpleasant inconvenience of getting their head kicked in.

Wednesday night was dire, but at least some people are trying to take some positives from it, you seem happy though (for whatever reason) to take Rosco's great performance, one of the only few positives from Wednesday night, and turn that into a negative too.

May i suggest you take up a martial art? You obviously have a lot of pent up anger inside you.. or have you sobered up now?

[Huisdean]

So predictable some posts on this forum. The posters who are usually negative are and the postive ones remain positive. The good think about some of the positive posters is that they can put things into perspective while some of the negative posters are,well just negative.

The game sure wasn't pretty on Wednesday but, for those who were there, did we deserve to lose, I don't think so. We did create more chances than St. Johnstone although they played the better football but with little end product until late in the game when we were chasing a point.

There are many reasons why we are in the position we are this season and injuries has to be a major cause. It is no surprise that defensively we have started to improve with a semi settled back 4 but now the problems have switched to upfront. We have arguably lost our 3 most creative players in Hayes/Shinnie and Doran. name me a team in our position who would not struggle without these players. The ones who have replaced them are just not as creative or even out and out/good strikers. I do like mackay I have to say and if we could pair him with someone, I think it could become a good partnership. Anyhow, we now can hardly score in games despite creating chances and that can be said for large parts of the season.

TB has a bit of power now if some of the players want to stay as thay have to produce in the reamining games, if they don't then they have to go as simple as that. As for one poster saying County would look at us as being 12 easy points next season, or something like that, give me a break. They don't know what players they will have next season and are unproven at SPL so nobody knows how they will fair (and by the way, haven't they been getting stick recently for their stlye of play?) so am I a happy clapper or a being negative. In truth neither, just being realistic which some posters on this site don't know the meaning of that word.

[old caley girl]

It was interesting seeing the highlights on the BBC website (if you can bear). To me I can't see Tade did anything to warrant a penalty being awarded. You dont see the whole of the Tansey incident but that certainly looks more of a penalty than the one that was given. Claude's strike was great technique and unlucky not to find the target. We didn't get the rub of the green but then we didn't deserve it either.

I sit behind the goals and the stj player just dropped like a stone IMO. You start to doubt yourself when a lot of folk in the main stand thought it was a stonewaller. However on seeing the highlights I havent changed my original opinion at all that it was harsh.

[+Fraz]

It was interesting seeing the highlights on the BBC website (if you can bear). To me I can't see Tade did anything to warrant a penalty being awarded. You dont see the whole of the Tansey incident but that certainly looks more of a penalty than the one that was given. Claude's strike was great technique and unlucky not to find the target. We didn't get the rub of the green but then we didn't deserve it either.

I sit behind the goals and the stj player just dropped like a stone IMO. You start to doubt yourself when a lot of folk in the main stand thought it was a stonewaller. However on seeing the highlights I havent changed my original opinion at all that it was harsh.

Yeah I thought it was harsh too (as did plenty others around me) and said so on here, but was told that it was a stonewaller, glad I'm not needing another trip to the opticians!

[bishbashbosh]

It was interesting seeing the highlights on the BBC website (if you can bear). To me I can't see Tade did anything to warrant a penalty being awarded. You dont see the whole of the Tansey incident but that certainly looks more of a penalty than the one that was given. Claude's strike was great technique and unlucky not to find the target. We didn't get the rub of the green but then we didn't deserve it either.

I sit behind the goals and the stj player just dropped like a stone IMO. You start to doubt yourself when a lot of folk in the main stand thought it was a stonewaller. However on seeing the highlights I havent changed my original opinion at all that it was harsh.

Yeah I thought it was harsh too (as did plenty others around me) and said so on here, but was told that it was a stonewaller, glad I'm not needing another trip to the opticians!

watch the sj game again on bbc.co.uk. then click the icon to the left and watch spl classics, inverness first hat-trick in the spl from the "inverness assasin" in a 4-2 win against hibs. hayes was magic that night minus his stupid back pass for hibs first goal and we had someone who actually knew where the goal was

[Jay_7]

It's probably fear of sitting next to people like you that prevent a lot of people from coming down to watch us, thus contributing to our dwindling support. I often find myself sitting next to your type at matches, the sort of people who only go to games to vent their spleen and shout and bawl at grown men without the unpleasant inconvenience of getting their head kicked in.

Wednesday night was dire, but at least some people are trying to take some positives from it, you seem happy though (for whatever reason) to take Rosco's great performance, one of the only few positives from Wednesday night, and turn that into a negative too.

May i suggest you take up a martial art? You obviously have a lot of pent up anger inside you.. or have you sobered up now?

Yes that's exactly why people are staying away. Nothing to do with paying top dollar to watch absolute pish on the field at all, is it?

Could you please point out where I turned his performance into a negative. I'm pretty certain that I praised his performance. But let's not let little things like facts get in the way of a good ol' witch hunt for folk who disagree with you eh?

May I suggest you stop trying so hard to be a smart arse? You obviously crave attention constantly... Or have you grown up now?

So predictable some posts on this forum. The posters who are usually negative are and the postive ones remain positive. The good think about some of the positive posters is that they can put things into perspective while some of the negative posters are,well just negative.

The game sure wasn't pretty on Wednesday but, for those who were there, did we deserve to lose, I don't think so. We did create more chances than St. Johnstone although they played the better football but with little end product until late in the game when we were chasing a point.

There are many reasons why we are in the position we are this season and injuries has to be a major cause. It is no surprise that defensively we have started to improve with a semi settled back 4 but now the problems have switched to upfront. We have arguably lost our 3 most creative players in Hayes/Shinnie and Doran. name me a team in our position who would not struggle without these players. The ones who have replaced them are just not as creative or even out and out/good strikers. I do like mackay I have to say and if we could pair him with someone, I think it could become a good partnership. Anyhow, we now can hardly score in games despite creating chances and that can be said for large parts of the season.

TB has a bit of power now if some of the players want to stay as thay have to produce in the reamining games, if they don't then they have to go as simple as that. As for one poster saying County would look at us as being 12 easy points next season, or something like that, give me a break. They don't know what players they will have next season and are unproven at SPL so nobody knows how they will fair (and by the way, haven't they been getting stick recently for their stlye of play?) so am I a happy clapper or a being negative. In truth neither, just being realistic which some posters on this site don't know the meaning of that word.

*actual facepalm*

You think negative people lack perspective yet in the very next sentence you say you didn't think we deserved to lose? Are you unstable?

Injuries is a massive cop out of an excuse used by happy clappers. Isn't the point of having a squad rather than just a team so that the club can cope with injuries? Did we not have a transfer window in January to further alleviate any injury problems? You can use the injury excuse all you like but it's just not washing with this fan.

Glad to hear you're so confident of beating County. I have actually taken the time to go and see them this season (in the away end with the Falkirk fans, naturally) and I actually know what I'm talking about when I say they'll see us as 12 easy points next season.

Happy clapper, negative or realistic? Well from where I'm sitting, it's you who doesn't fully understand the meaning of "realistic" and you're definitely looking like a happy clapper to me. But by all means continue to drum up support from your fellow happy clappers. There's plenty to choose from on here.

[+Tree]

Whilst I can't really be bothered to wade into this 'happy clapper' vs 'negative realist' love in (is there any actual point being made in amonst the personal rubbish), can I just point out a couple of minor things

1. We have pretty much the lowest budget in the SPL. Dunfermline have six players earning in excess of £2k per week and Hibs will probably have even more. How many players do we have earning over £1.5k? Perhpas this may be why we struggle to attract the next Messi

2. How long does it take for the fact that Steven-MacKay turned down a contract offer to register against Butcher turning him away?

3. The problem of poor entertainment is Scottish Football wide and not unique to the TCS. Football in this country needs to change, but how does picking individual players to be ritually slagged off on this forum help?

4. Thankfully every First Division manager has noted how the football from County is slick and entertaining. My County supporting pals class it in their words as 'grim but effective'. They are also about to lose possibly their most skillful player to Dundee Utd

[davie]

This is like some sort of demented kindergarten in here. Do we all actually support the same team or not? There are so many agendas on the go it's unbelievable (happy clappers - what un utterly demeaning thing to refer to your fellow ICT fans as- sweetie rustlers and the utterly, terminally negative and not one of you seems to have the good grace to acknowledge, let alone accept an alternative point of view. Wednesday night was a massive disappointment but for the life of me I can't see where the disaster comes into it given that we were beaten (just) by a team in fourth place that could concievably challenge for a champions league place! Aye, there were some long balls but there was also a great deal of passing going on that even Rob MacLean commented on. Both, by the way, were equally derided in the main stand by the proponents of each style. We could (should?) have scored a couple of goals in that first half and I don't really see where St. Johnstone could have pulled that back from. Does that make them worse than we thought, or us worse than we thought? I really don't know.What is evident to me is that this club is in the throes of fundamental change for an awful lot of reasons, and those will inevitably mean that we have to cast our net wider to attract the calibre of player that will keep us in the SPL. We won't find them all in the Highland League and we won't always get it right, but what I won't ever understand is the carping on here that players don't understand the "Caley Thistle spirit" (whatever that is in reality) and don't try, because they have been brought in from elsewhere. It sometimes seems that Rosscoe and Shane Sutherland sometimes only have to turn up to be lauded. That's not "spirit" it's parochialism.The closest and only thing I've seen to that lack of spirit was Gnapka a couple of games ago and he rightly suffered for it. The others that sadly lack a mitigating highland upbringing show professional pride whenever I've watched them. Others might regard our injury situation this year a a smokescreen but I fail, utterly, to see how we could have remained unaffected by the loss of Hayes, Doran, Andrew Shinnie, OTJ and Hogg. That's half a first pick outfield side! I'm no "happy clapper" but I am prepared to engage with the management, listen and try to see where they are going, as long as it's not Div. 1. I am far from convinced that they have worked it through tactically but If they were as inept as some on here would suggest, I reckon the Board might have something to say, because Div 1 is where we would be. In truth, one of the worst aspects of Wednesday night was the utter lack of support from the home fans. It was funereal from the off. How's about (and this is aimed at some on this thread) actually getting off your backside and supporting your team. Starting Sunday, because they sure as hell need you.

[Row S]

Yes, as most have said above a woeful performance. The only ones I would absolve from blame were Tuffey, Tokely, Golobart and McKay and Nick Ross when he came on.

Thank goodness we have a gap of points between us and H*bs and the Pars. Otherwise that team performance would have got Terry the sack.

[Huisdean]

It's probably fear of sitting next to people like you that prevent a lot of people from coming down to watch us, thus contributing to our dwindling support. I often find myself sitting next to your type at matches, the sort of people who only go to games to vent their spleen and shout and bawl at grown men without the unpleasant inconvenience of getting their head kicked in.

Wednesday night was dire, but at least some people are trying to take some positives from it, you seem happy though (for whatever reason) to take Rosco's great performance, one of the only few positives from Wednesday night, and turn that into a negative too.

May i suggest you take up a martial art? You obviously have a lot of pent up anger inside you.. or have you sobered up now?

Yes that's exactly why people are staying away. Nothing to do with paying top dollar to watch absolute pish on the field at all, is it?

Could you please point out where I turned his performance into a negative. I'm pretty certain that I praised his performance. But let's not let little things like facts get in the way of a good ol' witch hunt for folk who disagree with you eh?

May I suggest you stop trying so hard to be a smart arse? You obviously crave attention constantly... Or have you grown up now?

So predictable some posts on this forum. The posters who are usually negative are and the postive ones remain positive. The good think about some of the positive posters is that they can put things into perspective while some of the negative posters are,well just negative.

The game sure wasn't pretty on Wednesday but, for those who were there, did we deserve to lose, I don't think so. We did create more chances than St. Johnstone although they played the better football but with little end product until late in the game when we were chasing a point.

There are many reasons why we are in the position we are this season and injuries has to be a major cause. It is no surprise that defensively we have started to improve with a semi settled back 4 but now the problems have switched to upfront. We have arguably lost our 3 most creative players in Hayes/Shinnie and Doran. name me a team in our position who would not struggle without these players. The ones who have replaced them are just not as creative or even out and out/good strikers. I do like mackay I have to say and if we could pair him with someone, I think it could become a good partnership. Anyhow, we now can hardly score in games despite creating chances and that can be said for large parts of the season.

TB has a bit of power now if some of the players want to stay as thay have to produce in the reamining games, if they don't then they have to go as simple as that. As for one poster saying County would look at us as being 12 easy points next season, or something like that, give me a break. They don't know what players they will have next season and are unproven at SPL so nobody knows how they will fair (and by the way, haven't they been getting stick recently for their stlye of play?) so am I a happy clapper or a being negative. In truth neither, just being realistic which some posters on this site don't know the meaning of that word.

*actual facepalm*

You think negative people lack perspective yet in the very next sentence you say you didn't think we deserved to lose? Are you unstable?

Injuries is a massive cop out of an excuse used by happy clappers. Isn't the point of having a squad rather than just a team so that the club can cope with injuries? Did we not have a transfer window in January to further alleviate any injury problems? You can use the injury excuse all you like but it's just not washing with this fan.

Glad to hear you're so confident of beating County. I have actually taken the time to go and see them this season (in the away end with the Falkirk fans, naturally) and I actually know what I'm talking about when I say they'll see us as 12 easy points next season.

Happy clapper, negative or realistic? Well from where I'm sitting, it's you who doesn't fully understand the meaning of "realistic" and you're definitely looking like a happy clapper to me. But by all means continue to drum up support from your fellow happy clappers. There's plenty to choose from on here.

Having just watched the highlights for the first time, I am of the opinion that the St Johnstone penalty was very very soft and if that was given, then the foul on Tansey equally merited a penalty. Had we scored first, as we should have, then I don't think we would have lost and still don't think we deserved to lose that match. Did St johnstone play us off the park and create chance after chance, no they didn't and we had enough chances to win the game. With regard to injiries, we did try and get some players in the transfer window, not too successfully from the looks of it but quite simply, there was not the money to get replacements as good as the ones we lost. Unless you are blind, then it is obvious how injuries have affected the teams position and performance as we simply cannot afford to lose the number of players we have this season.

Finally one for all the long ball theorists, look at the highlights and watch the first chance that Tade missed, good football, pleyed on the deck, but totally ignored by many on here. Yes there is not enough of that type of football played but FFs we are not Barcelona. As, I think Davie said, lets get behind the team on Sunday instead of constant knocking of the team. (closest thing to a happy clapper I can find!)

[tm4tj]

The highlights made us look like Barcelona. Perth controlled the ball better than us when in possession and looked more comfortable on the ball. It really was a frustrating performance by us and we should be taking a lot more of these chances han we currently are, think 5th November.