Matchday Thread Inverness CT -V- Aberdeen

[Sneckboy]

 

 

A nil-nil draw was a fair result and pretty good against a team who didn't concede a single goal during the competition and had recently beaten Celtic twice.

 

 

Just to elaborate on that, in Aberdeen's great run of form over the last 13 matches, the only team they failed to score against is ICT (twice). We are certainly doing something right, and our tactics were spot on.

 

 

Over the last 255 minutes we've played against Aberdeen, we're 4-0 up!

[Rainbow]

A word to all those blaming the ref for the Foran penalty: If this was stonewall, so was Meekings' late tackle on Rooney in the first half.

[ANDYCAM]

Looked to me that Yogi set out for penalties from the off. Dropping Doran clearly said to me that he wasn't going to have a go anyway. Unbelievably negative tactics for a cup final.

Other that Dorans effort we never troubled Langfield the whole game which is very disappointing.

As for our so called fans I thought it was disgusting how many left as soon as the penalties finished. Hundreds if not thousands streamed out before our players went up to get their medals a total disgrace in my eyes and they should be ashamed of themselves

Dougal

DROPPING, UNBELIEVABLY, NEGATIVE, DISAPPOINTING, DISGUSTING, DISGRACE, ASHAMED....I take it you are not a motivational speaker Dougal.

 

 I was at Celtic Park with  ICTFC fans, players and staff.. I think you should change your words to ASCEND, BELIEVE, POSITIVE,ENCOURAGING, ATTRACTIVE, HONOUR and finally  PROUD, because because that's how I felt when I left Celtic Park yesterday.

 

 

[Huisdean]

 

A word to all those blaming the ref for the Foran penalty: If this was stonewall, so was Meekings' late tackle on Rooney in the first half.

 

No it wasn't. Meekings got the ball first, confirmed by TV pictures and Mark McGhee!. Could have been given but would have been borderline while ours was a stonewall penalty.

[Yngwie]

My positive thought for the day: if you are going to lose a cup tie on penalties, it's better to do it in the final rather than one of the earlier rounds. 

[Macduffer]

We matched them man for man, but we were set up too defensively.  I suppose the 5-0 drubbings were the thinking behind that.  I don't know why Hughes doesn't stick to the system that brought Butcher so much success - but he hasn't used it once. Still, could have gone either way at the end - and we had a good spell for 25 minutes early 2nd half.

Back 4 were superb - especially Meekings and Devine.

Foran was clear penalty, as shown on highlights.

We need to work on set pieces, and get one specialist free kick taker - practice, practice, practice!  Those were real chances.

[Bluesman]

Just back from Glasgow. Reflecting on the event, I had great weekend with my team at a cup final, we lost and that's really disappointing having got there, but even playing well below the levels we have reached earlier this season, we were within a couple of penalties of an historic win. We lost a long term manager middle season and that's often tough, yet have managed to stay top six and reach our first ever major final. (Most) of the Aberdeen fans I met were fine folk and weren't taking us lightly. One nice touch was a 51,000 crowd in Glasgow and no-one was singing about their 'beliefs' and 'culture' just football.

[AJS]

A fantastic experience for me personally being at a final...the only disappointment being that we lost out on the cruel lottery that is a penalty shoot out.

 

Neither team deserved to win over the open play. Aberdeen for all the quality they had on paper had very little to show for it. We set out to hit them on the break while containing them defensively, the latter was well carried out.

 

While we defended well enough we offered very little going forward. We seemed nervous in the final third, and some players seemed nervous just to be on the ball but dont get me wrong for the way we set out we did well.

 

Despite his lack of chances I thought Billy led the line really well. Anderson and Reynolds arent the biggest of centre halves and he won his fair share both in the air and on the ground. The penalty miss marred his day...overall he was our best player. 

 

Shootouts are a lottery, we got the rub of the green in the Semi final but we didnt get it yesterday. Im extremely proud of what we have achieved by just getting there and while it means little right now Im confident in knowing that our time will come.

 

With top 6 already being secure it almost felt like the season was over but we can still climb the league and finish strongly. With the final been and gone climbing that table has to be the sole focus between now and the end of the season...would also be nice to see youngsters like Evans and Christie get more time on the pitch, both look very promising.

 

It was a real step into the unknown and while it was a defeat I'm not disheartened...I am and always will be a very proud ICT supporter. 

[gingerjaggy]

Hugely Disappointed but immensely proud of the club and the terrible numbers we took to a cup final  . Seriously though we were so outnumbered but we never fogotten as we made just as much noise and when the players especially Foran waved there arms up to rouse us we responded and even went toe to toe with the Aberdeen supporters fantastic support. Had a great day but looking back on yesterday i am even more disappointed at the lack of pressure we put on the Aberdeen goal. I understand Hughes after the two 5-0 hammering's and i believe had it not been that bad we may have been slightly more expansive. I think Doran didn't play from the start because of the a slight knock otherwise he had to start. The game was poor but we did show glimmers of good interchange but we just went far to direct half of the time to put there back line under pressure. And when we did get in behind them our crossing was horrible. Barry Robson was definitely winning the worst free kick competition but then Doran stepped up near the end and hit was had to be the winner with an awful attempt. But what we lacked in quality we didn't in passion and effort  and for people who slated Billy's penalty, well he was dead so i cant fault him. Overall great day disappointing result but i know have a craving for more finals in the future.   

[RiG]

I am absolutely heartbroken at the result. It's nearly 24 hours later and I am still downbeat at what happened yesterday. I've been through break ups that have been easier to stomach than the loss yesterday.

 

When I heard that Pawlett was out and then when Hayes went off injured I thought that we would have a real chance to have a go at Aberdeen. Instead we retained the 4-1-4-1 that we used v Hibs which created almost nothing in 90 minutes and bettered it by creating nothing in 120 minutes yesterday. I think Hughes was right to stifle Aberdeen the way we did but in doing so we essentially conceded any attacking ability.

 

Vincent was solid defensively on the left with Shinnie but seldom got forward. On the right the highlight of the day, if you can all it that, was Watkins drifting infield before falling over himself trying to shoot. Mckay got absolutely no service aside from hooked balls and lumps towards the corner.In the middle Draper, Foran and Tansey shielded the back line well and just let Aberdeen have the ball as much as they wanted and challenged them to create chances which they, more often than not, failed to do.

 

I thought our best players were Shinnie, Meekings and Devine. Raven was decent enough and Brill less shakey than he has been recently but the other three were our best performers by far.

 

We've gone from one of the most creative and attacking teams in the league to one that is struggling to get anywhere near the goal now. I can barely remember a chance we had in the match and whilst Aberdeen didn't create a number of clear cut chances they definitely came closer to scoring than we did with the chance for Anderson perhaps being their best opportunity along with McGinn I think getting a nice break of the ball in the box but luckily he missed.

 

I thought that, especially towards the end, Aberdeen were there for the taking if we wanted to have a go but we lacked the guile to create anything of note to see us nick it. Not sure about this supposed stone wall penalty that Foran has been talking about. Wasn't convinced at the time about the claim by Rooney for his shout but I haven't seen a replay so I could be wrong.

 

Langfield had clearly done his homework on how Mckay takes his spot kicks. Low and left every time (except from a couple at the end of last season when he went high and right and missed). It was a good save. Tansey - oh dear. What else can you say? Ross and Doran finished well under pressure but every one of Aberdeens spot kicks were unstoppable. Sickening when I saw Rooneys strike hit the back of the net. Whilst all the Dons celebrated Scott Vernon was straight over to the ICT guys shaking their hands. Fair play to him because I can't say I would have been doing that if I was in his boots.

 

Congratulations to Aberdeen then and I hope they enjoyed their day. Can't say I will be anywhere near the city centre next weekend though when they have the cup procession. I will be sitting in my flat sobbing into my ICT top wondering what could have been if we were a bit more positive and tried to test Aberdeen a bit more.

 

EDIT: Just had a thought. In the Semi Final our kids beat the Hearts kids in the half time shoot out. ICT of course went on to win at penalties. Yesterday, the Aberdeen kids won the shoot out and went on to win on penalties. It's a sign.

Edited March 17, 2014 by RiG

[Kingsmills]

A poor game and we probably missed an opportunity when Aberdeen lost their two pacey attacking options in Pawlett and then Hayes.

 

There were clear signs of nerves which was understandable. Whilst we offered very few serious attempts on goal, to be fair, neither did Aberdeen and nil nil at the end of normal and extra time was probably about right. The only difference between the sides was that whilst Aberdeen struck four clinical penalties into the corners with some pace giving Brill no chance, two of ours were poor penalties but such is life.

 

Personally, I though the ref had a very good game, he wasn't overly officious and didn't appear to favour one side over another despite the noisy and potentially intimidating Aberdeen support. True, some officials may have pointed to the spot after Considine's challenge on Foran but equally, some refs would also have blown for Meekings's challenge on Rooney in the first half. I have no difficulty with the fact he gave neither and both sides had fully two hours to score from open play.

 

Disappointing but, after recent results, the fact that we held our own against the second best team in the land on the biggest stage in the country is quite encouraging what is less encouraging is that even when reverting to our favoured formation, the urgency, pace and cohesion up front that was evident in the first half of the season seems almost completely absent.

[+DoofersDad]

Glutton for punnishment that I am, I have just watched the highlights and the first minute is interesting when Hayes launches himself at Josh Meekings.  I'm not entirely sure what he was doing, but if he hadn't been quite so late his studs might well have ended in Josh's head 4 foot off the ground.  I think it was adrenaline pure and simple and there was no intention to harm Josh, but it was incredibly reckless.  Aberdeen may say they are unlucky to have lost Hayes quite so early in the game but they are actually quite lucky that they were able to bring someone on to replace him.

 

The amusing thing about this is that in response to the summariser saying that he hoped the injury wasn't too bad, the commentator gives the opinion that "the challenge from Meekings was a sore one!"

 

I must admit that I was half expecting to see Hayes land in a heap on the ground from a great height fairly early in the game but I was expecting it would be because Richie had taken his legs from under him rather than it being self inflicted.  The left Richie free to concentrate on others.

[Ronaldo]

Very proud of my team

 

Disapointed we can't shoot more often though, which is probably the reason we haven't scored in four games 

[gingerjaggy]

Thats one point if we are not creating much then why not take a few more efforts outside the box as we did have a few times where we were outside the area and we tried to play through and lost the ball. I think yesterday shows that when Yogi gets the tactics right then we are hard to beat but in the summer we need a new striker and maybe a link player to get us back to our free flowing best from the start of the season  

[BristolFashion]

Very sad way to lose that way. Great trip and we did silence the red fans for much of the match.

 

Thought tactics were all wrong (and not just this match)

 

Has anybody got the win/lose/draw stat.s for Yogi? Service to Billy was not there, Draper was ineffective, running after the game. Shinnie was the best on the pitch. Doran improved things for us, just wish Draper had made way.

 

Rooney celebrated with the Don.s but came back to applaud the Caley fans - thought that was a good touch.

 

I left at that point - just didn't want to be there - sorry to anyone who thought I left too early.

 

I thought John Hughes' shoes were as ugly as WIllo Flood. 

[Sneckboy]

Very sad way to lose that way. Great trip and we did silence the red fans for much of the match.

 

Thought tactics were all wrong (and not just this match)

 

Has anybody got the win/lose/draw stat.s for Yogi? Service to Billy was not there, Draper was ineffective, running after the game. Shinnie was the best on the pitch. Doran improved things for us, just wish Draper had made way.

 

Rooney celebrated with the Don.s but came back to applaud the Caley fans - thought that was a good touch.

 

I left at that point - just didn't want to be there - sorry to anyone who thought I left too early.

 

I thought John Hughes' shoes were as ugly as WIllo Flood. 

 

Hughes record (all competitions): Won 5, Drawn 8, Lost 6.

[starchief]

Draper was ineffective, running after the game. Shinnie was the best on the pitch. Doran improved things for us, just wish Draper had made way.

I'm astonished you think that.

[ilpadrino]

 

Draper was ineffective, running after the game. Shinnie was the best on the pitch. Doran improved things for us, just wish Draper had made way.

I'm astonished you think that.

 

 

I thought Ross Draper had some brilliant plays, sometimes tempered by following it up with pìsh - overall though, he was a big nett contributor.  Aaron Doran likewise.  Today, the name used (umprompted) by most neutrals I've spoken to is Draper's.

[+HawkeyeTheGnu]

 

Draper was ineffective, running after the game. Shinnie was the best on the pitch. Doran improved things for us, just wish Draper had made way.

I'm astonished you think that.

 

I thought draper did well defensively , winning the ball in some good defensive positions. His distribution, however, was murder. To the point that I was wondering about a red/blue colour-blindness test.

[+roarer]

Fair play to the County supporter I was told about in the ICT end.County top and ICT scarf so I'm told.

Was that you by any chance Dougal?

[Rainbow]

 

A word to all those blaming the ref for the Foran penalty: If this was stonewall, so was Meekings' late tackle on Rooney in the first half.

 

No it wasn't. Meekings got the ball first, confirmed by TV pictures and Mark McGhee!. Could have been given but would have been borderline while ours was a stonewall penalty.

 

Mark McGhee also confirmed that the push on Foran wasn't enough for a penalty. So let's rest this.

[Kingsmills]

Whilst I don't think it was a penalty either I hardly think that the view of a failed manager and terrible pundit should be taken as the final word on the matter.

[starchief]

I also don't think it was a penalty from Meekings.  If Josh hadn't touched Rooney, Adam would still have put the ball out after a heavy touch, then fallen over.  A slight toucvh changed nothing.  No advantage/disadvantage from it.

[Sneckboy]

Without wishing to comment directly on specific incidents in the game, the most enduring, common misperception amongst fans is the 'he got the ball first' fallacy. Getting to the ball first does not mean a foul has not been committed.

[+Wanderer]

Very true if the tackle is deemed to be dangerous...taking man and ball...studs showing....two footed, etc.

 

Not so true if it is a clear attempt to get the ball first (and does) regardless if there is contact with the opposing player, which by definition, in a tackle, even in this namby pamby day and age, there inevitably will be. Football? A contact sport? Get thee to a nunnery...