THE MATCHDAY THREAD Discuss ICT & other games in this thread as they happen Kilmarnock -V- Inverness CT PREVIEW 10th Jan 2015 @ 3:00PM Rugby Park, Kilmarnock Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Facebook Go to the Chatroom Media Coverage AUDIO MFR LIVE commentary (MFR/ICT) [uK/VPN Only] BBC Open All Mics (BBC) [uK/VPN Only]   TEXT ESPN BBC SKY Sporting Life VIDEO SPFL YouTube Channel ICT Official YouTube Channel   TEAM LINEUPS

Tremendous result from being a goal down and with 10 men. According to the beeb, Billy's first goal resembled Gascoigne's against Scotland in Euro 96!! Can this really be true? Great he's found his shooting boots again, his price has just gone up. And with DU and Hamilton taking points off each other on Monday, it's looking good for league position. The match with DU will be fascinating.

A superb win with the team digging deep to come from a goal down and with 10 men.  Great to be be back in the top 3 and 3 wins in the row in 2015.

Match on Alba at 2230 tomorrow, if you have power to be able to watch it.

We were lucky in Thurso with no power loss which surprised me with force of winds we had, about 95mph :O.

What this has shown everybody is that ICT are not just going to drift away. After a terrible December whispers started about us slipping but 3 wins (2 away) have let others know the team are not going away from the race at the top. Next week is a game to look forward to now.

That's three times recently we have come back from a goal behind to win games (Hamilton, Dundee and now Kilmarnock).  That is something we rarely managed to do in the past.  Incidentally, in all three games it is Billy who has scored the equaliser.

 

Whilst it clearly shows great spirit in the team to win games we've been trailing in, it rather disguises the fact that we have gone behind in 7 or our last league 10 games.  In those games we have scored 15 goals with 3 in the first half and 12 in the second.  Our opponents have scored 13 with 6 in the first half and 7 in the second.  We seem to be very much a second half team at the moment. 

 

Anyhow, rather than analyse that intriguing statistic I'll just add my congratulations to the boys for a great comeback in difficult circumstances.  After the penalty it became one of those games where you are happy to come away with a draw, but to get a win is just fantastic.  It is this sort of result ground out during the year that makes such a big difference to the position at the end of the season.

Well done wee Billy, never doubted him even when he wasn't scoring and 10/10 from our 10 men!  

Tremendous result from 10 men I feared the worst when we went down 0-1 but we quickly got the equaliser and then showed tremendous spirit to go on and win the game and according to BBC with 55% possession

Outstanding result and stats suggest we bossed it with 10 men. I think all grounds should be Astro - clearly suits us!

Billy has scored our last 4 goals, securing 3 wins.

 

A few weeks ago during his drought it was noted that we were doing well and weren't dependent on Billy for goals, which was a good thing.

 

Now we are doing well thanks largely to his goals, which is also good thing.

 

Heads we win, tails they lose.

My favourite ever visit to Rugby Park.  We were playing them off the park and when Dave the Rave got sent off and they converted, I turned to ma boy and said we're still going to win this!  They had about 10 minutes of superiority, then we kicked off again and made them look stupid. Confident, controlled, great one touch stuff to which Killie had no answer ..... but what a way to win with 2 goals that will rank among the best you will see all season. Proud.... very proud!!!

Just saw the goals on SSN. Both great goals by Billy. No protest from Dave the Rave about sending off. Killie fans did not sound happy bunnies. Well done.

Fabulous win  today with 10 men and being a goal down.

 

6 days ago  we secured a hypothetical  place in the SPFL for next season with 38 points, Alex Neil mentioned last week that Hamilton needed just 1 more point to make 40 points to stay up,  someone has been doing their sums early in the season, so with 41 we are now officially staying up. (according to Alex)

Only 2 wins away now from a hypothetical top six so it was a good top six, 6 pointer today.

Looking forward to watching Sundays Alba highlights.

Sounds like a well deserved victory. The breaks have been going against us recently but we're still grinding out points. Let's see how well our rivals get on when they hit a rough patch. Also pleasing to see performance levels maintained even when the team is rotated. I can see us finishing strong this season, in contrast to last year when the fixture congestion and lack of squad depth burned us out.

Edited January 10, 201510 yr by AlexJones

Excellent game after we went one down we dug in and bossed

the game . Brilliant goals well executed.. Nick Ross played a blinder today. The pitch really suited us we look very comfortable on it.

Edited January 10, 201510 yr by caleymore

Fab-u-lous result given that we were missing Watkins who has been so good for us recently, and Christie not starting....but sounds like Ross had an excellent game, so kudos to Yogi for that...coming back from a goal and a man down to win away from home is a great result...Three wins on the trot after a disappointing December is a might fine response.

 

My other team had a great result this evening as well coming back from a goal down as well, so I am a very happy bunny tonight, looking forward to see the highlights on BBC Alba tomorrow!

Edited January 10, 201510 yr by Eagle4Caley

We rode our luck a little at 1-0 - if Mcgennis hadn't missed that open goal we may not have come back, but apart from 10 minutes after the penalty we bossed the game and didn't look in any real trouble. At 1-1 only one team wanted to win. The killie play acting was embarrassing, and I am glad I don't have to watch that pish every week.

Deserved winners, and justice was done in the end.

Who moved into RB when Raven went off? Draper? Shinnie? Meekings?

Shinnie went to RB. Fitted in well

From the highlights Billy's goals look superb. That said, the team must have played well in adverse circumstances. We are very lucky to have a player of Billy's calibre at the club. 

Perhaps we should consider a plastic pitch ?!!

Given Mcgennis missed an open goal, can we appeal Raven's red card on the grounds that it wasn't a clear goalscoring opportunity?

Perhaps we should consider a plastic pitch ?!!

We are

Excellent result yesterday in very trying conditions. Nick Ross played well and showed he is deserving of a start every week. Given our resources, being third in the league behind Aberdeen and Celtic is amazing and I feel that we are well equipped to still be there at the end of the season. 

Superb result considering the circumstances and also the weather which was truly horrendous in parts. One Dean Brill kick looked like it had some real distance on it only to be held up in the air being sent back towards the ICT goal. Awful conditions to play football in.

 

Most of the efforts in the first half were from distance. Tansey and Eremenko both coming close with decent efforts on goal. I think the shot from Eremenko which Meekings or Warren headed over was going to be easily saved by Brill but the header made things a bit more awkward. Tansey was able to lift a lovely ball over the top of the Killie defence which caught the wind and just took it away from Mckay. Mckay also did well to get in on goal but from a tight angle he was only able to find the side netting. Eremenko also tried his luck from a free kick as both sides seemed to be keen to test out the keepers from distance in the difficult conditions.

 

The game really sparked into life in the second half when Magennies went down under a challenge by Raven. At the time I thought it was a dive as Magennis seemed to thrown himself over quite easily but having seen the highlights that assertion looks pretty harsh. Whilst you still don't get a good angle to see if Raven has been harshly treated I think given the lack of protests from ICT players, and Raven specifically, it would appear that the officials got it right. Eremenko smashed the resultant spot kick to the right of Brill who was very close to keeping it out.

 

After this I fully expected Kilmarnock to see things out. They hadn't looked overly impressive in the game to that point but neither had we and with the extra man I was fully expecting us to be chasing shadows. I was dumbstruck at how negative Kilmarnock seemed to become in this situation. Instead of trying to knock the ball about and pull us out of position there were a lot of aimless punts up the pitch which were, for the most part, easy for Warren and Meekings to deal with. Miller was a complete non entity and Magennis somehow contrived to miss an open goal with a header from a few yards out after some good work by Killie at a corner.

 

Not long after this we scored out equaliser. A hopeful ball from Ross in midfield was looped up over the Kilmarnock defence and Mckay was onto it in a flash. He calmly lobbed on Killie defender, got the ball under control and bundled it beyond Samson to bring Inverness level. From here on in we dominated and there was only going to be one winner especially when Alan Johnston inexplicably took Eremenko off to an incredible reaction. Now there weren't many fans at that game but the booing that accompanied that substitution was as loud as I've heard around many Scottish grounds with significantly more fans within the stadium than were there yesterday. With Eremnko off Killie struggled to maintain possession of the ball and find a team mate and resorted to even more desperate punts up the park. 

 

Tansey and Doran were next to threaten for ICT and Samon did well to deal with a long range effort from Tansey which was turned round the post for a corner. Before long ICT took a deserved lead when Mckay chased down a Killie player inside the Inverness half. Despite clear shouts of "Man on!" from pretty much every person there with a leaning towards Kilmarnock Mckay was able to collect the ball and head goal wards unchallenged for about 40 yards before he fed Ross who returned the ball to Mckay and he coolly dispatched his shot into the goal beyond Samson to a chorus of boos that would rival anything from Saint Mirren so far this season. Maybe we got a bit lucky as it looked like two Killie players clattered each other and then had a wee lie down when Mckay shot but we'll take it.

 

I can see why a lot of Killie fans are frustrated. That game should have been yours after the sending off an penalty but for some reason Kilmarnock became very negative and struggled to make their man advantage count. Credit to Hughes and the players for remaining disciplined and hitting so effectively on the counter. Mckay was absolutely magnificent. His hold up play was a joy to watch and his goals were well taken. Nick Ross also did well supporting the attack and he grabbed two assists yesterday. With Watkins out just now he's certainly impressing.

Edited January 11, 201510 yr by RiG

Good report RiG, and well done again to the team!

Highlights