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Partick -V- Inverness CT


Scotty

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Yesterday draw was a smash & grab which we did not deserve but will take gladly. The team selected did not inspire, especially when key players Tremarco, Draper, and Mulraney were missing. Also Cole not making a start(carrying an injury perhaps?). But badly missed Jake's lighting pace & Drape's bossing midfield. Osman/Lawless injuries particularly fortunate for us. Especially Lawless my motm for Patrick first half. Few decent saves by Fon Williams, but wish communication between him & defence improves. Raven & Billy McKays put a shift in. Raven rolled back the years and my MOTM. His volley looked superb and if scored would have been a peach. The double sub could not happen soon enough and if 10 minutes earlier all the better. The fresh legs & attacking play had Patrick dropping back in the last ten. They switched off with the cross, step up Gary Warren,  BOOM 1-1. Many at the game thought Anier & Vigurs were flat & should have been subbed much earlier. Oh and why,why,why does Alex Fisher not get a start?. Yesterday needed a grafter who can find space, high work rate & aerial presence in the box. Noticed fans shouting to get Fisher on at Ritchie but falling on deaf ears. Don't know if it's personal but WTF Billy McKay needed better support/service yesterday. 

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At this stage of the season and in our position we are still tinkering with formations and positions, every week a new page from the Foran big book of coaching ideas. This is rank amateurism I am afraid. We seemed to get it right against Rangers, and here we are back in the russian roulette of Richie's ever changing revolving doors.

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23 minutes ago, The Long Man said:

At this stage of the season and in our position we are still tinkering with formations and positions, every week a new page from the Foran big book of coaching ideas. This is rank amateurism I am afraid. We seemed to get it right against Rangers, and here we are back in the russian roulette of Richie's ever changing revolving doors.

In fairness to Foran his hands were tied due to injuries and suspensions. When I saw the starting line-up my heart sank. Still a point at Firhill is a bonus at the moment. Well done Gary Warren. I love you x.

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Watched it all this morning on CaleyJags TV.  What little football there was came mostly from PT.  But all credit to the defence for holding out. Thought the offside for Billy for Anier's "goal" was a bit harsh.   Nothing offside about Warren's equaliser though.  Very pleased for him.  He has taken quite a lot of stick on here this season.  He has been, imo, ICT's best ever signing.  I'd love him to have one more season, if his legs can carry him through it.

I'm fairly optimistic that we will be stronger in the two upcoming crucial home games with Tremarco and Draper back, and I hope, Mulraney too.  We need his pace down the wing to provide some much needed service for Billy.  Also, Tansey seems to have got his mojo back.

So, onwards and upwards, six points from next two games could make the bottom of the league look quite different.

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Don't think it was as smash and grab as some have said. I wouldn't say that Partick dominated the game and both sides seemed to have the same number of (half) chances during the course of the 90. No question we weren't great but over the course of the game I think we deserved a point and it is always pleasing when a team who time wastes loses a goal right at the death. I thought Warren was offside but Fuctifano has it spot on with those screengrabs, he clearly is onside when King plays the ball in. Poor defending from Thistle but we didn't really cover ourselves in glory for the opening goal failing to defend a couple of crosses in quick succession before Doolan put the home side ahead from close range. Partick should be a good shout for top six but I get the feeling that if they were perhaps more positive after going ahead then they might well have taken us apart. Instead they seemed to adopt a quite negative approach to the game for the most part. They probably should have had a penalty in the first half when Warren tried to scale Doolan (I think) in the penalty area.

I guess the personnel available forced us to go 3-5-2 at the start and we struggled with that for the early part of the game. Warren really wasn't with it at the right side of the back three and Lawless was linking well with Booth on the Partick left. A lot of their early pressing came down that side. Any momentum that Partick had was killed off when Lawless went off injured and we started to become a bit more comfortable after that. Despite this we struggled to really create anything of note save for the offside 'goal' and some long range efforts from Tansey. A lot of our attacking play took the form of punts in the general direction of Mckay and Anier which was not very successful and you could see the former getting very frustrated throughout the game with what he was being given to work with. Seemed odd to adopt this style and not play someone like Fisher or Boden from the off to try and win some headers. I've not seen anything from Anier to suggest he should be anywhere near the starting XI.

Vigurs again was poor and, as mentioned, at points he just gave up chasing back. Really poor effort from the guy especially when he's been giving it big licks saying he wants to prove the boo boys wrong and whilst I don't like to see our players getting booed when they are subbed I could see why the fans did give him an earful. That was not the kind of performance we need from our players at such a desperate time.

Tansey and Raven did well for us especially the latter given he was on the opposite side of the pitch he usually plays on. I was surprised we chose to go with two defenders to try and provide some width especially two right backs. I wondered if playing King wide might have given us something of a more natural balance in the 3-5-2.We certainly looked a wee bit better when he came on. 

Given our record at Firhill I was happy to get a point but the performance still didn't give me much confidence going into the next lot of massive games for us. Hopefully getting Tremarco and Draper back from suspension will allow us to get back to a more balanced line up and we can kick on from there.

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I've always thought that Mckay and Anier are too similar to play as a front two.  One ordinarily would think that a Fisher-Mckay combo with the creator/finisher set-up would be the way to go but looks increasingly likely like we'll not be seeing Fisher again.  No appearances on the pitch since Hogmanay, even when we go behind and start lumping balls forward.  Looks like the rumours of a fall-out have a strong hint of truth to them.

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I can only judge on the highlights, but it looks like PT had the better chances, so a draw seems to have been somewhat undeserved. However, there have been plenty of times this season when we should have taken something and missed out, so it's our turn. I ask the question: would you prefer to be Hamilton, Motherwell, RC or us right now? We have the fewest points, but have taken 5 from the last 4 quite tricky games and have 2 home games against RC and Killie to come; Hamilton have shipped 10 goals in the last 2 and play The Rangers with a new manager next; Motherwell are also in a reasonably poor run of form, but looked better on Saturday; County are also on a poor run, but were probably unlucky on Saturday.....It's a tough one, but despite a poor performance yesterday, I think I'd prefer to be in RF's shoes than Canning's right now. When you're at the wrong end of the table, 5 points are a lot to pick up on your rivals, but it's in your own hands when you still have to play some of them (RC and Mot). 

The pressure is ramping up, but we have it in the team to salvage this - c'mon Inverness, let's do this!

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10 hours ago, IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER said:

And was wee Billy interfering with play ?? - Harsh but maybe YES ?

 

wee billy.png

I only got the rear shot after speaking with Richie...but having seen it, I don't think we can complain too much.  Don't think either the Ref or Lino were certain (and as such should not have called it offside) but they've got away with it....just.

anier_shot.jpg 

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My issue with the offside is that again the linesman takes an eternity to raise his flag. You can see in the Sportcene highlights Anier strike the ball, score, start celebrating with his team mates and in the background the linesman appears and puts his flag up. Ultimately it was the correct decision but why did he take so long to flag for offside? It makes it look like he only did it on the back of the protests from Partick players.

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The linesman could see that Mckay was in an offside position but not whether he was interfering with play.  The linesman will only raise a flag if someone who is in an offside position touches the ball.  The referee was in a position to see that Mckay was interfering with play but not whether he was in an offside position.  I can only assume that the linesman appeared to take his time because he would have needed the referee to ask him the question.  Bottom line is that it was a correct decision.

Same can't be said of Madden's decision not to award Celtic a last minute penalty.  It is quite extraordinary some of the things The Rangers have got away with recently.  

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Glasgow's 3rd team can only attract a crowd of 3082 against us.  It was much the same against Hamilton where the away support had a much shorter distance to travel.  And this is Scotland's top flight.  My home town team in Worcestershire currently play in the 10th tier of the English pyramid structure (6th tier of non-league).  They have reached the semi-final of the FA Vase and in their home leg semi final on Saturday attracted a gate of 3349.  Just goes to show the problem facing football in Scotland at the moment.

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11 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

Glasgow's 3rd team can only attract a crowd of 3082 against us.  It was much the same against Hamilton where the away support had a much shorter distance to travel.  And this is Scotland's top flight.  My home town team in Worcestershire currently play in the 10th tier of the English pyramid structure (6th tier of non-league).  They have reached the semi-final of the FA Vase and in their home leg semi final on Saturday attracted a gate of 3349.  Just goes to show the problem facing football in Scotland at the moment.

Not really a fair comparison is it? Comparing a once in a lifetime event to a run of the mill league game, so it's hard to see what point you're making.

My local side Bonnyrigg Rose (average home crowd 200) got 1500 v Dumbarton recently. This week they play Kirkintilloch Rob Roy in the last 8 of the Scottish Junior Cup. There'll probably be a couple of thousand there.

The problems facing Scottish football are no different from the problems facing other small nations in light of the corporate greed and globalisation of the sport encouraged by satellite tv. The attendances per capita have been discussed on here before, but stand up well against similar small nations. I was at 3 games in Portugal recently and their attendances are shocking compared to ours, and they have 11M people.

BTW I've seen South Shields this season - favourites for the other final place in the Vase. 

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