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Scotty

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Dodgy keeper cost us. Polworth a different player when switched to the centre. White unusually quiet. Macaulay (however it's spelled) looks good. I'm fairly happy dominating an away game before injuries and only losing due to a third choice keeper.

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Our season in microcosm. Taking and then squandering the lead not once but twice. Very disappointing against a team so lacking in form and confidence.

Odd that OFW's "injury" didn't trouble him when he was in the United States. The sooner we get that waste of the biggest salary at the club off the wage bill the better.

Edited by Kingsmills
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7 minutes ago, Satan said:

Oh dear, sounded like a point saved in the end. Need to hope the new guys hit the ground running.

Nah. ICT were best in the match. Falkirk had a few chances but were never in control. The subs just made for a scrappy game at the end.

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Looked nervous. Dropped the ball early. Let in a goal from a corner. Yeah, he's only third choice and he played as well as he could. But it's still his fault we let in the 2nd goal. That's a 2-1 win.

If he's not to be blamed for not being good enough then it can't be ok to have a go at Austin or White for not being good enough either.

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Our best 3 players this season have been Donaldson, Ridgers and Walsh. All missing, so not too bad a result. Until they are all back, it might just be a case of staying within touching distance of 4th place, then a full strength side finishing strongly.

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1 hour ago, standbydave said:

Not very fair from Starchief blaming our 3rd choice keeper for us not winning, as usual plenty chances to put the game to bed

Maybe even 4th choice when you consider that Hoban was above him in the pecking order before going out on loan - he was on the bench for Forfar again today. McKay was completely out of his depth so while it might be harsh to blame him personally, the fact that we had to field him cost us 2 points.  

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1 hour ago, bigman said:

Come on guys Don,t blame the keeper he should of had better protection young guy thrown in at the deep end.

I quite agree Bigman the blame cant lay at the feet (hands) of the goalkeeper. There are 10 players in front of Mackay that need to do their job also !!!  We all know how Ridgers was when he first came to us. 

37 minutes ago, Caley Stan said:

Maybe even 4th choice when you consider that Hoban was above him in the pecking order before going out on loan - he was on the bench for Forfar again today. McKay was completely out of his depth so while it might be harsh to blame him personally, the fact that we had to field him cost us 2 points.  

4th Choice ??? Ridgers No1 Hoban No2 (before loan) Mackay No3 Mackinnon No4 . I dont think we can include OFW as I doubt he wants to play for us again. Apparently since the arrival of our young custodian the Forfar keeper has 3 MOM performances  - thats football for you. Anyway a point with a somewhat depleted squad is better than nothing and keeps us on course for play offs. 

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2 hours ago, tm4tj said:

I believe that's a miscount by the BBC, it's 1000 less, but still a decent support, 240 of them being in the ICT end.

Dx2fjWjWsAEpQvJ.jpg:large

It was Heather Dewar at the game, what do you expect. 

2 hours ago, starchief said:

Nah. ICT were best in the match. Falkirk had a few chances but were never in control. The subs just made for a scrappy game at the end.

We should have been out of sight at half time. The Falkirk fans were just getting the boos going when Rudden scored.

Doran was almost in the clear, hit the ball past the right back, then pulled up with a groin injury. Just as he was starting to show a bit of form.

A lot of positives today, Chalmers was outstanding (never thought I would say that), White had a decent battle all over the park including defence (still couldn’t trap a bag of cement mind you). McCart was solid. Doran had as good a game as I’ve seen all season. Welsh, Rooney as usual. Austin battled away and won a few fouls but for me he’s always a bit lightweight and tries to run defenders when he hasn’t really got the pace. McCauley could be useful once he gets up to the pace of our league. Doesn’t lack confidence to try things anyway. MacDonald was hardly on long enough to get a touch so hard to judge, think it was him who shot past the near post late on. As long as he isn’t another Billy King.

Sorry to say our keeper fumbled one early on which dunted his confidence. Falkirk fans going on about McShane’s corner but every corner he took before that (at least 4) was gash, so maybe he got lucky. With Ridgers we would probably have won that, never mind Wonderboy Walsh, and the Great Wall of Coll (copyright somebody else, not me) sitting amongst us.

Edited by TheMantis
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4 hours ago, standbydave said:

Not very fair from Starchief blaming our 3rd choice keeper for us not winning, as usual plenty chances to put the game to bed

I agree with that but, at the same time, it also shows what an important player Ridgers has become for us. Let's hope that he is fit for Tuesday.

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Had an enjoyable trip up with Caley Mad...I think our view was that this was a match of two goalkeepers, theirs pulled off three good saves, ours just didn't have the match experience and got caught out by the corner....the first goal wasn't his fault, and was the only time in the first half we got carved open. I thought Brad and Jamie had good games at the back, especially during the 2nd half when I though that we were playing with only two at the back. Welsh was pretty solid IMO, and promising signs from McCauley, and to a lesser extent McDonald given he had about ten minutes...I though Doran was pretty impressive, he seemed to be the danger man for us, so it was really disappointing to see him go off injured with either a hamstring or a groin strain (he pulled up when in full stride). Austin was busy, but can't recall a shot, header or many passes, but did win the free-kick which eventually led to our 2nd goal

First trip to Falkirk, impressive stadium, great to see two ends with plenty of fans in them...although they were pretty quiet!

Back to the goalkeeping situation, it beggars belief that OFW was injured when he hasn't played in how long...I can't believe we are still paying his wages!

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I think Ridgers is our most improved player. Feel sorry for young keeper, outfield players make a mistake time to recover keeper makes a mistake goal. Hope he gets the support he will need. I would say by reports we should  have had them dead and buried long before final whistle.

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13 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

I agree with that but, at the same time, it also shows what an important player Ridgers has become for us. Let's hope that he is fit for Tuesday.

Nah it doesn’t matter who is in goals once again we concede more than one and it makes it so much harder to win games

thats about 9/10 times we have conceded 2 or more goals and it needs addressed 

What really bugs me about the goal from the corner it seemed to me we didn’t have players covering the post which we should have , but let’s face it we shouldn’t concede direct from a corner kick.

Started the game with 3 regulars out and should have won so decent performance overall.

Not blaming the young keeper but as a team we need to tighten up the defence to not concede two goals.

Edited by Gregor
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2 hours ago, Gregor said:

Nah it doesn’t matter who is in goals once again we concede more than one and it makes it so much harder to win games

thats about 9/10 times we have conceded 2 or more goals and it needs addressed 

What really bugs me about the goal from the corner it seemed to me we didn’t have players covering the post which we should have , but let’s face it we shouldn’t concede direct from a corner kick.

Started the game with 3 regulars out and should have won so decent performance overall.

Not blaming the young keeper but as a team we need to tighten up the defence to not concede two goals.

The defence, for the most part, was perfectly fine yesterday. For all of their pressure in the second half Falkirk struggled to create a clear cut chance apart from the Rudden effort at the end. Indeed our defence has been one of the toughest to beat this year and is something like 3rd in terms of average goals conceded. Our attack however is yet again failing to take the chances that come our way. 17 shots yesterday, 9 on target and only 2 goals to show for it. We're 5th in terms of average goals scored. We simply aren't clinical enough.

Don't get me wrong bad errors like the one we had yesterday won't help us and we definitely need to sort that out and continue to keep things tight at the back but we also need to look to improve things up front as well. Our defence has often helped out our attack by shutting other teams out whilst our forwards don't take their chances. It's time the attack stepped up as well to help out our defenders who also need to keep on top of their game as we head into some crucial fixtures.

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For all of Falkirk's possession in the second half most of their chances were crosses fizzed into the box with no one around to make anything of them. I felt we handled them pretty well for most of the game. 

One thing we did struggle with in the first half was the long balls over the top and passes down the flanks which brutally exposed our lack of pace in defence but we sat a bit deeper in the second half and this seemed to work. Rudden was excellent moving off the ball and the equaliser was a well taken effort but poorly defended from us. Same with the opener. I expected a shot so I was surprised to see Chalmers drive it low towards Rooney for the opener. Lovely strike from Doran to put us ahead at the break. I think he was our best player yesterday and it was a shame to see him go off injured (again) especially when it looked like he might (!) be through on goal with a decent chance to get a third goal for us.

The goal from the corner was awful to see from an ICT PoV as Cammy Mackay was only there because Ridgers missed out with injury. Can't help but feel that if Ridgers was in goal he would dealt with that a lot better and generally wouldn't have shown the same levels of nervousness that Mackay did throughout the game. He flapped at a couple of crosses as well and just generally did not look comfortable at all.

Oakley and McDonald had good chances for us with Oakley heading straight at the keeper and McDonald flashing a low drive past the post. We also had a decent looking shout for a penalty turned down. Fair play to the Falkirk TV commentators claiming it was a great block :laugh: Obviously Falkirk had the wonderful chance at the end with Rudden blazing over under no pressure at all so whilst I think we deserved the won overall we were lucky not to lose it at the death.

McDonald looks a useful player. Could be decent playing behind the striker if / when Polworth goes in this transfer window. MacCauley looked okay. Some size of lad for a wide man. McCart again looked decent and Chalmers and Welsh continue to do well in the middle. Definitely not the greatest collection of players we've ever had but Robbo has done well to assemble a decent enough squad with the financial limitations at the club.

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1 hour ago, RiG said:

The defence, for the most part, was perfectly fine yesterday. For all of their pressure in the second half Falkirk struggled to create a clear cut chance apart from the Rudden effort at the end. Indeed our defence has been one of the toughest to beat this year and is something like 3rd in terms of average goals conceded. Our attack however is yet again failing to take the chances that come our way. 17 shots yesterday, 9 on target and only 2 goals to show for it. We're 5th in terms of average goals scored. We simply aren't clinical enough.

Don't get me wrong bad errors like the one we had yesterday won't help us and we definitely need to sort that out and continue to keep things tight at the back but we also need to look to improve things up front as well. Our defence has often helped out our attack by shutting other teams out whilst our forwards don't take their chances. It's time the attack stepped up as well to help out our defenders who also need to keep on top of their game as we head into some crucial fixtures.

I really must take pen and paper to count the chances you are talking about because there certainly didn’t seem like 17 clear cut chances to score.

Maybe it’s the wild shots from outside the box that’s adding to the count so maybe we should be trying to get the balls to the strikers inside the box as that’s where most goals come from.

But that doesn’t discount my point of not conceding goals , to go into a match  and score two goals,  it’s disappointing to come away with only one point.

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1 hour ago, Gregor said:

I really must take pen and paper to count the chances you are talking about because there certainly didn’t seem like 17 clear cut chances to score.

Maybe it’s the wild shots from outside the box that’s adding to the count so maybe we should be trying to get the balls to the strikers inside the box as that’s where most goals come from.

But that doesn’t discount my point of not conceding goals , to go into a match  and score two goals,  it’s disappointing to come away with only one point.

I didn't claim there were 17 clear cut chances to score. I said that we had 17 shots yesterday and of those 9 were on target and we scored 2 (source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46929128 which can be taken with a pinch of salt but it's the best we have to go on). I don't disagree with your point about preventing goals but it's not the big issue for us this season. It's our inability to convert the, at times, plethora of chances that come our way that is seeing us drop points.

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