I think tactically we managed to subdue Aberdeen and thier support for most of the game. I thought we might have nicked it in added time, but not to be this season. Well done to all at ICT, Team, staff and Fans. We have been in a Cup Final and gave it a Right Good Go.

His comments all week have bemused me!

 

To be honest I agree in part with Dougal however I also think that, despite my firm belief that 4 - 1 - 4 - 1 is not great for us in attacking sense, the tactics we employed yesterday stifled Aberdeen successfully. So I am somewhere in between. Meekings, Shinnie and Devine were all superb. We didn't really press any of the opposition players instead letting them have the ball and defended as two banks of four with Tansey in between.

 

Whilst we defended well and Devine handled Rooney fantastically we offered very little going forward and conceded a lot of possession to Aberdeen though they seldom did anything with it. I think the bugbear is that we have the players to damage Aberdeen but in our attempts to stifle the Dons we pretty much reduced ourselves to aimless hoofs, hooked balls and lumps up the park for Mckay to chase down.

 

Going forward we offered almost nothing for large parts of the game and that was very frustrating. Aberdeen were there for the taking but we never seemed like we believed we could do enough to get a winner and instead concentrated on defending and throttling the Aberdeen attacks.

I agree fully with this RiG. Aberdeen were there for the taking and they looked distinctly average. It's a pity Doran and Christie weren't brought on earlier. It's all 'ifs and buts' now.

Aberdeen were without arguably their best 2 creative players and still they dominated the game , if only we had had a go at them instead of looking to spoil the game we could have sneaked the win .

Doran looked really dangerous when he came on.  But I'm not sure he would have if he'd been on at the start. The tactics were a return to what we looked so good at: i.e. counter-attacking. 

 

In the run-up, I'd said Foran and Tansey as the holding midfielders, with Draper playing behind the striker.  I was wrong.  I'd dissed Tansey for not having the pace to play that role (he hasn't) but I think he should have been pushed forward for the long shot.  Not too far forward but enough for the ball to come back to him, then pow!  It's over the bar!  (but maybe in the back of the net occassionally).

 

Watkins looked good (not so much yesterday but decent enough).  I'd like to see a Ross-Watkins-Doran tried, with Watkins in the hole.  Maybe that would give us a better chance of a goal, rather than the more midfield Vincent/Foran/Ross in there.

 

All-in-all, we more than matched the team everyone has tipped to become the big force in Scottish football outside Celtic.  A first cup final is as much an announcement as getting into the SFL or being promoted to the SPL.  We are now very much a top six team.  We challenge for Europe.  We challenge for cups.  They're not easy things to win (ask Aberdeen, Hibs etc.) but, for the first time in our history, we deserve to be spoken about in the same breath as the New Firm and more feared than the Edinburgh clubs.

 

How far we've come.

Thought the tactics were ok.  The midweek game may have taken the legs out of us in extra time Billy was running on empty by the end. We had the chance with the free kicks at the end could have gone either way,so close!

So chuffed that my local team made it all the way to a national final, yes it would have been great to win but just making a final is such an achievement. Would never imagined that walking into Telford Street all those years ago.

 

Congrats to all staff & players and amazing bunch of fans for a great day out. We can argue about the tactics forever but I'm proud of my team.

 

With the youth we have around the place the future could be very promising.

Yes we were negative but it was probably the right way to go given how poor our form has been and how fragile our confidence is just now. I suspect the vast majority of us would have thought it game over if Aberdeen had scored first at any time given that we've not recovered to win on a single occasion this season.

 

The fact is that the negative tactics worked and we did prevent them from scoring and might even have sneaked a goal.

 

It remains my view that Hughes is a poor manager with a poor record who talks a lot of nonsense and hasn't an original thought in his head but, for this match, given how far he has dragged us down in such a short time, I think he got the tactics right and it came within a couple of spot kicks of paying off.

I certainly wouldn't criticise the tactics, we made Aberdeen look very ordinary I think. After initially being on top they simply ran out of ideas. What I think has changed though, and I'm not sure why, is we've sat in and invited teams onto us plenty of times over the years, but we've always used it is a tactic to counter attack at speed and, often, to great effect.

 

Yesterday we only did the first part and seemed content to just hoof it up to Billy, who stood no chance as he was so isolated. There was one occasion in the second half when we did break up one of their attacks at the edge of our box and we did move the ball forward a bit quicker. Can't mind who had the ball but we had 3 players free on their left and just a decent quick ball out to any of those would've seen us with a 4 against 2 in a flash. Instead the ball got slowed up, passed 5 yards sideways and the chance was lost. There was so much space in the middle at times it just demanded someone to drive into it, but we never did.

 

That's the part of our game that's disappeared. We were so slow coming forward we simply allowed Aberdeen time to reorganize. As disappointed as I am at losing I'm more disappointed in the fact we could've easily won that game if we'd just been a little bit braver.

Aberdeen were without arguably their best 2 creative players and still they dominated the game , if only we had had a go at them instead of looking to spoil the game we could have sneaked the win .

Eh Alloa too the dons to penalties at Aberdeen and only missed one!!

It's something I've mentioned to a few folk now but we don't really have much pace in this team. No players like a Wilson or, more recently, a Hayes type who could really surge forward on a rapid counter or drift past players like they weren't there like Andrew Shinnie.

Aberdeen were without arguably their best 2 creative players and still they dominated the game , if only we had had a go at them instead of looking to spoil the game we could have sneaked the win .

Eh Alloa too the dons to penalties at Aberdeen and only missed one!!

And your point is ?

It's something I've mentioned to a few folk now but we don't really have much pace in this team. No players like a Wilson or, more recently, a Hayes type who could really surge forward on a rapid counter or drift past players like they weren't there like Andrew Shinnie.

 

I agree yesterday but Watkins is quick and he will get better but his delivery and attempt to shot were not good enough but he did a couple of times surge forward when he had space but with only billy up again we lacked options and it fizzled out. I do think Danny Williams is quick and i was surprised he want on the bench as i think Hughes likes him but in the summer we need an attacking midfielder to play in that link role unless he moves some people about. A new striker maybe a couple or even 3 if Billy does leave to give us more options and maybe a pacey winger to add. We may not need them all, we have a great squad which is all mainly tied up now so it isnt a big job just a small number of additions to tweek the squad to go even better next season.

Billy looked really tired as he ran up to take the penalty. Pity we could not have another like Tansey who also did not , OR was not able to due to tiredness, hit that ball with the usual venom.

Billy looked really tired as he ran up to take the penalty. Pity we could not have another like Tansey who also did not , OR was not able to due to tiredness, hit that ball with the usual venom.

 

To be fair, a little less venom and a little more accuracy from Tansey would have been preferable! However, those guys had the guts to take the penalties, so fair play. Can't have been easy with all that baa-ing going on.

Got to hand it to the lads, they couldn't be faulted for effort. Sadly we did lack in the final 3rd and even when we did get the occasional chance from a set piece it was completely blown.

But great effort, tight effective tactics and a top support.

Dougal, why do you even bother. Such a negative killjoy.