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Spiders at home


tm4tj

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Spiders are coming

 

High Scoring League Leaders Queens Park come North on Saturday looking to keep ahead of the chasing pack as they face a recently revitalised Caley Thistle in an eagerly awaited cinch Championship encounter. Kick-off is scheduled for 3:00pm. We can look forward to this one with a bit more optimism after two high scoring wins since the turn of the year has breathed some new life into the struggling Caley Jags and their ailing fans. However this is a different beast we face after the relatively easy time we had against Cove and Arbroath. Queens themselves are scoring for fun and will be a massive test for us to see if we have really turned the corner or are we still a long way short of the finished article.

 

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Match/Ticket info

Official Preview

New Signing Ben Woods

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Venue H2H v Queens Park Pld Won Drn Lst For Agst + / -
Home 10 4 4 2 15 12 +3
Away 7 5 0 2 14 10 +4
Neutral 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 17 9 4 4 29 22 +7

We've not seen much of Queens park over recent years, but this new improved version are proving to be quite a handful. This is just the third meeting since 2010 when we won 3 - 0 in a League Cup fixture in Inverness.

Last 10 Competitive Meetings. First two are from this season, the rest start at 2010 backwards.
loss.png
1 - 2
(A)
draw.png
1 - 1
(H)
win.png
3 - 0
(H)
loss.png
1 - 2
(H)
win.png
2 - 0
(H)
win.png
2 - 1
(A)
win.png
1 - 0
(H)
win.png
3 - 2
(A)
draw.png
2 - 2
(H)
win.png
2 - 1
(A)

We drew the first fixture 1 - 1 at the Caledonian Stadium this season. Here's the CTO summary from that game in July:

Queens make their point: Queens 39 year hiatus from this tier of football ended as they ventured into the Championship, and it all started well when Jake Davidson opened the scoring in the thirteenth minute. In a half of many chances, Bily Mckay levelled the score a minute before the interval. That's how it stood until the final whistle with neither side able to make the breakthrough despite numerous opportunities at both ends thanks to Callum Ferrie and Mark Ridgers and some wayward finishing. Queens Park showing they are not here just to make up the numbers and were good value for their point.

Pos Team Pld W D L F A Pts
 
1. Queens Park 20 12 3 5 44 27 39
2. Ayr United 20 10 5 5 39 27 35
3. Dundee 20 10 5 5 33 25 35
4. Partick Thistle 21 10 3 8 42 36 33
5. Morton 19 8 6 5 28 21 30
6. Inverness CT 20 8 5 7 30 28 29
7. Raith Rovers 21 8 4 9 26 27 28
8. Cove Rangers 20 5 6 9 28 40 21
9. Arbroath 21 3 8 10 18 34 17
10. Hamilton Ac. 20 2 5 13 16 39 11

SATURDAY 14TH JANUARY (all 3:00pm)

Ayr United v Arbroath

Cove Rangers v Raith Rovers

Dundee v Partick

    Accies v Morton

  Inverness CT v Queens Park

Last Time Out

Our last two games since the turn of the year saw us bang in an unprecedented of late ten goals. Six against Cove was followed by four at Arbroath. Billy Mckay scored a hat-trick against Cove and one at Arbroath to put him on 90 goals. Few would bet against him reaching Dennis Wyness' all time record of 102. 

Queens Park also stuffed six past Cove and beat Partick Thistle 2-0 in 2023. They also played Raith Rovers in the Challenge Cup but went down 1-0 to a late goal from Rovers. I wouldn't read too much into that result, they have bigger fish to fry. Queens are the highest scoring team in the League but they are defensively similar to Inverness.

Latest Team News

Nathan Shaw will return to the squad after injury and Daniel Mackay should be fit enough after taking a knock at Arbroath. Max Ram will require another couple of weeks after being injured at Cove. New signing, midfielder Ben Woods is available for selection tomorrow.

May be an image of 1 person

 

Here's birthday boy Zak Delaney

 

 

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  • tm4tj pinned and featured this topic

I’m not going to get to this one as a relative is in hospital so domestic duties need to take priority.

I’ll be keeping my eyes open for updates and have a sneaking suspicion we will claim all three points.

Enjoy the game!

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7 minutes ago, jed5697 said:

I'm not aware we have anyone with arachnophobia 😂 hopefully a web is spun to turn the tables 🕸 to produce a result 😃 

I guess a website is a good place for spider puns! Personally, I would prefer to play them midweek... perhaps on a Web-nesday. QP having their favourite meal tonight? Corn on the cob(-web).  Ok, I'll get my coat! :getmecoat:

 

 

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Hopefully the Manager of the Month curse will see it spinning out of Coyles web and there'll be no flies on us. Tough one to call. Both teams banging goals in recently so...this has 0-0 written all over it 😅

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2 hours ago, CaleyHedgehog said:

I'm quietly confident of a win. Come on Caley thistle.:ictscarf:

I hope you are right I will be in the north stand 'coughing' them on!  I will be keeping clear of everybody.

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Fortunate draw.  We started lively but offered very little after the first 25/30 mins by way of proper threatening balls into the area.

Queens Park were much the same for the most part, and the game mostly played out in the middle 50% of the park.

If the aim is progression (and it clearly is/should be), then today was a bust.  Luckily teams around us didn't take advantage.

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A hard fought draw against the leaders so happy enough, although we didn't  take chances, but neither did they.Good to see the old ICT back with at least a bit of grit determination and drive and hopefully keeps the confidence in the team.Good to see Shaw back.Hyde coming more into it.Both keepers had a good game.Really thought Deleany would be walking before the end.

Edited by Douglas Mackenzie
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Ferrie in goals for Queens made a number of good saves particularly in the first half to keep them in it. Second half we had to hang on a bit towards the end. A draw probably fair but both teams could have won it. How the Queens player managed to miss when a poor clearance dropped in front of him and he managed to scoop it over the bar 😲 despite nil nil it was an entertaining game...

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Must have watched a different game to you as draw was a fair result. QP had the 2 best chances but not through any creative play, but poor defending. Their keeper had two outstanding saves to keep them in it. For all Queens midfield play, they created few clear chances unlike ourselves. Some of our best football played this season today

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I got to today’s game after all.

I thought it was an entertaining draw. Both teams could have won it but equally could have lost it, so a draw fair overall.

We created our best chances in the first half, with their ‘keeper making at least two very good saves.

Queens Park played good touch play throughout and always looked dangerous but a mixture of poor finishing and saves by Ridgers kept them at bay.

I thought we handled Murray very well, so credit to Devine and Duffy.

They tortured us at times down our left, with Delaney really struggling in the first half in particular, but he had a better second half.

We were competitive in midfield and all the players had positive attitudes again which was good to see.

When we kept it down and passed quickly in the first half we looked good but we did resort to high hopeful balls at times.

I assume Mackay picked up a knock in the first half and hope he and Hyde are ok. Hyde is improving every game at present.

Scope for optimism particularly with none of the teams above us winning, but we still have a lot to do this season to be in the mix at the end.

Edited by Robert
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Queens started well but we soon improved and had some good chances. A couple of efforts that zipped past the posts from Henderson and MacKay showed we were up for this and the save from a Mckay header was incredible. However, after getting on top Queens then looked the better side and finished the first half strongly creating some good chances of their own. 

Second half I felt we started well but faded and Queens were well on top. The best chances feel to Murray who leathered a low shot across goal and I think he also had another cross / shot that seemed to knock over a Queens player at the back post and he couldn't turn it into an empty net. Devine made an incredible late block to dent Murray (I think) on another occasion. Again though, we seemed to improve and Mckay was given acres of space to shot but his effort was right at Ferrie and later on Nicholson hit a sweet volley straight at the keeper after a cross was scrambled away. 

I was surprised how open the game was at times. For long periods there seemed to be no one in midfield for either side and players could do what they wanted under little to no pressure. Queens played some nice little triangular passes at pace which allowed them to quickly work open spaces at the back and we struggled to keep up. For us we tended to play channel balls for the wide players to run into. Both sides created a number of good openings in the 90.

Standouts for me were Mckay for us and Murray / Boateng for Queens

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On balance of play this was probably a fair result and is a better indicator of where we are right now - a bit more resilient when under pressure and once again creating genuine chances which we might have taken on another day, Queens might feel the same about the chances.

As the game developed it seemed that we went very direct whilst QP were able to keep the ball better and recycle possession - further highlighting the lack of quality in our squad depth.

A few good performances from us today, and also a below par effort from the captain - looked sluggish a few times and had one or two howlers with his boot/ball interface. 

Quite an energetic match and both Welsh & Doran looked buggered midway through the 2nd half, fair play to Billy as he has consistently covered a lit of ground which can't be easy at his age.

Defence worked hard and can all celebrate the clean sheet,  despite some first half skinning Delaney finished the game well.

Still missing Allardice/Mcgregor in the middle of the park, nothing is being created through the middle,  everything is coming from out wide, which makes us quite predictable.

Let's play them again next week to see if we can do it better. 

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I enjoyed todays game. It might have been 0-0 but it was an entertaining game and much better than a lot of the games at home so far. I think we’ve only won 4 at home this season. Either team could have won it but we played some nice stuff today and if we can keep playing like this the play offs are a possibility.QP have won 6 or7 in a row up till today and we certainly matched them. 

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