Matchday Thread Inverness CT -V- Motherwell

[Kingsmills]

Education education education...

[qwerty11]

This 'pretty' style Hughes is trying to bring in is boring in my opinion.There is no 'right' way to play football and, particularly in the SPFL, there is no point in knocking the ball about in your own third. This bunch of players was not assembled to fit this style. We created no clear cut opportunities this evening and the Watkins/Winger situation is baffling. He was probably our stand out attacker in the cup final and has looked sharp when he's come on.

Christie, who I felt on Saturday wasn't at his best, was magnificent when he came on. Changed the pace of the play brilliantly and scored a cracker. 

A 5th place finish (at best) seems likely.

[+Tree]

Radio interview after match when your team has just been beaten - the perfect time to laugh and joke re Gordon Marshall's abilities

 

Clearly Richard Gordon has picked up on the issues and his comments suggests that he is, privately at least, just as baffled at the mess the team is now in.

[hislopsoffsideagain]

I think anybody who attended last night's match will now be pretty certain that we are heading for disaster unless there is a change in style or a change in manager.

 

I'm going to be sniggering all day at the thought that Yogi believes our players need "educated".  He could do with learning from two people who sat close to me last night - firstly, a girl of 9 or 10 who said loudly within the first 10 minutes that "there's much too much passing!" - and secondly, my partner (who has barely watched any football in her life), who turned to me at half-time and said - "why do they keep trying to go down the middle?  There's never any space."

 

I thought it was hilarious that the pitch was watered at half-time - was that to make our 'slick passing game' even slicker?!

 

This style of play isn't even enjoyable to watch - it is so slow that it becomes mind-numbingly boring.  There were several times where we counter-attacked - only for the play to be slowed down, the ball passed back to the halfway line, knocked around a few times, then possession lost.

 

I don't think we had an attempt on goal from inside the Motherwell box last night.  That's pretty damning.

 

It was hard for us to chase a goal, given that Hughes appeared to have told Vincent, Christie, Watkins and Mckay to play in pretty much the same position, so that they just got in each other's way.  But hey, maybe that's because they need "educated".

[Yngwie]

The only silver lining to this latest cloud is that the defeat was very predictable, to the extent that I had a successful bet on the outcome. Did the same last week v Dundee Utd. Sometimes you can just see it coming.  All too often, these days.

[Oldken27]

John Hughes is responsible for that awful game of football. a passing game, mostly backwards, with only a few good moves. Shinnie, Tremarco, Christie and Watkins all deserved plaudits.

This was mostly the team who swept all before them under Butcher and look what Hughes has turned them into!

 

The boos were for Hughes and not the players.

 

He has to changes or we will be at the bottom next season! 

 

neksor

[RiG]

f**k off Hughes.

Our goal was good. That's about it. Absolutely no width. Played a central midfielder at right wing (and later right back), our left back at left wing, three central midfielders who looked like they had never met before. Odd then that 3 wingers sat on the bench. McKay looks more and more isolated up front by himself. Shinnie was rightly MotM for us and Christie looked good as well.

We can play all the pretty passing along the defence and the half way line but we have no clue what to do with it when we hit the final third. We were so successful because we were quick to attack and direct. This doesn't mean long ball at the time but when we had the chance to attack we went for the jugular. Hughes has strangled our attack and forced everything to go through the middle of the park. We are so slow to attack teams get men behind the ball and task us to play through them which, more often than not we can't do.

Well were solid but didn't have to be any great shakes. Their first goal was a long punt down the pitch which caught out our defence and Anier slipped in between Warren (I think) and Esson to slot the ball home. The second goal was much better. A rapid counter with 4 or 5 quick passes played in Vigurs and he easily dispatched the ball past Esson.

Crowd was really disappointing. Less than 2,400 but in truth I think it was even less. The only game left that means something now is the Derby on Friday.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Could be worse - we could be Hibs fans

[Kingsmills]

Not so sure about that. Hibs have a manager with a track record of being able to build a successful team if given time. Our manager's history offers no such cause for optimism.

[bishbashbosh]

once butcher clears out the debris at hibs and gets his own players in, better players than we have due to a bigger budget I expect to see a resurgent hibs next year not maybe as good as dons or du but certainly swapping places with us eg top six for bottom six

[Fanoffooty]

once butcher clears out the debris at hibs and gets his own players in, better players than we have due to a bigger budget I expect to see a resurgent hibs next year not maybe as good as dons or du but certainly swapping places with us eg top six for bottom six

I agree & Butcher will possibly be after some of our players

[Huisdean]

After last nights display from some of them, he would be welcome to them!

[Alex MacLeod]

 

once butcher clears out the debris at hibs and gets his own players in, better players than we have due to a bigger budget I expect to see a resurgent hibs next year not maybe as good as dons or du but certainly swapping places with us eg top six for bottom six

I agree & Butcher will possibly be after some of our players

 

Unlikely. Butcher never pays for players.

[Huisdean]

Firstly, last night was a dreadful game from both isdes and Motherwell were no better than us, what that says about Scottish football god only knows. I will come to the style of play in a minute but yet again, our defence has gifted two goals, take away those and probably neither side had any shots of note in the box.

While much of the critiscm on selection and tactics is rightly down to Hughes, the players do have to shoulder some of the responsibilty for this as well. They do not have to do everything the manager says when on the pitch and an example last night was Gary Warren especially dropping deep to get the ball fromm Esson, pass it across the park a few times then it goes back to Esson to hoof it up the park. That may be the managers tactics but surely the players can make their own decisions on the field. We were pretty poor defensively last night and have been generally for the past few weeks and there i a lack of form being shown by our defence just now. This may be down to tiredness with the number of games in a short space of time as, by and large, we have played the same team in these games. In short, we lack a leader on the park to sort things out as we do not appear to have one off the park at the moment.

I have been, what may have been described as a "happy clapper" but I have to admit my patience snapped last night when it was obvious we were playing far too narrow. Any success we did get was when the full backs did get wide and get some decent balls into the box. The other thing that is obvious is the lack of pace in midfield especially when we are breaking. Very few players seem to bust a got to get forwward, whether that is down to tiredness again, I do not know but is very noticeable. The team as ever will get my support but I do not believe Hughes is stupid enough not to hear the alarm bells ringing about what is happening. The test will be whether he reacts for the rest of the season but if he wants to win those fans over, who didn't want him in the first place, then he has a big job on his hands. A win at Dingwall would be a start as was it only a few weeks ago, everyone was raving about our performance there.

[ICTRoughi]

I have finally made myself watch the highlights on the on the SPFL youtube and I just want to 'highlight' some of the issues that have been discussed about lack of width at the moment. 

 

First Example: 

 

Look at how much space is being sacrificed - at home too! To be fair to the lads, moments later Greg Tansey cracked it off the post but I was amazed that we went through the middle and if Tremarco was allowed to exploit the flanks then Billy Mckay would have been supported.

 

What should have happend:  

 

The annoying thing is that if Butcher was here then the above would have happened and we could have scored. 

 

Second Example: 

 

Granted that Ryan Christie did go on to score in this example but look at the right hand side of the pitch, Billy is crying out for the ball and he was a break away from a goal. 

 

Third Example: 

 

As you can see again, the wide right is empty and you can see that the narrow style of play has drawn Motherwell in and this was at a point where David Raven could have been wide right looking for the ball and getting a cross into the box and create a goal scoring opportunity and again support for Billy. Sadly Raven was taken off and a central midfielder was placed at Right Back - ridiculous. 

 

Final Example: 

 

Not just attacking, defensively we are leaving too much space for the oppostiton to get into spaces and they utilise them and are more clinical with the ball. 

 

 

The most annoying factor about the missing space in the wings is that you have Nick Ross on the bench that would love to exploit the flanks but he isn't getting a look in.

[Fanoffooty]

After last nights display from some of them, he would be welcome to them!

Ok but the team were playing better under Butcher  & like someone else said tiredness could be a factor

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Is it not amazing how many co-dependents are coming out of the closet. If there were such great things on the horizon why did the erstwhile Messiah dump us ?

[rimet]

Do the posters ever think that they might be detrimental to the club? Negativity seems to be the theme and those who try to be positive are deemed 'happy clappers'! As a season ticket holder for many seasons I have been delighted with the progress the club has made. My only gripe has been the lack of game time for 'home grown' players but Hughes seems to want to change that and whilst I think Polworth and Christie have much to earn they must be the club's future.  

[GaliantGrunt]

Ex happy clapper here willing to change sides now after finally cracking during last nights game.

 

Hughes you will need to wisen up quickly or `thanks for your contribution letter in the post !

[AJS]

I wanted wingers, I got no wingers and up until the game had about 20 minutes left I saw no wingers...night was over before it began for me. 

[gingerjaggy]

Tiredness maybe a factor but it cant be that much of a determining factor for such a bad slump. As for tactics it doesn't make any sense what so ever. Our ground is one of the widest in the league so why are we cutting our face off to spite our face. Clearly playing narrow at home isn't nullifying the opposition but ourselves and it looks like everyone is getting in each others way. Now some people think Barcelona and Spain play beautiful football and to start with it was but it has got boring where as the German sides combines excellent ball retention but with some direct drive as well. Now under Butcher we played like that with some pace, direct running and some brilliant passing football. But Hughes has taken that away and sadly i dont know how things will get better unless he admits defeat and abandons this way. We can still be attractive and entertaining to watch by playing with wingers so i dont understand this need to congest the middle. I have been on here a few times to try and calm people down as it is only early in his tenure but it is so exasperating that we losing so many games and hearing people may stop going when the attendances are already small.   

[cantankerousoldgit]

Although Hughes came over very very humble when he took the job, his post match comments suggest that his arrogance is in inverse proportion to the team's success. I don't see him being likely to swallow his pride and admit he doesn't know what he's doing anytime soon.

[rimet]

Does any poster ever consider the fact that it is the players who are letting the club down lately? All references concern tactics/formations/shape etc. but very little has been made of which players have contributed to the club and which ones have not. Surely we should demand more of the first eleven regardless of the manager?

[Doch4]

Having just watched the highlights I thought we looked pretty good and were unlucky not to take anything from the game.

Are things really as bad as some are making out?

Sure, I'm disappointed at the recent run of results but in the big picture it ain't that bad. Or is it?

[Big G]

Having just watched the highlights I thought we looked pretty good and were unlucky not to take anything from the game.

Are things really as bad as some are making out?

Sure, I'm disappointed at the recent run of results but in the big picture it ain't that bad. Or is it?

Yes it is!!!

Watching highlights is no way to judge. During a game every team will have some good moves and these will be shown, but take my word for it things are not good and show no signs of getting better.