ICT -V- St Mirren : Matchday Thread

[davieB]

We were pish :007: A point would've been about right, but I'll take three when we play like that!!

St. Mirren dominated from start to finish(even after going down to 10 men), and it was desperate defending/luck that won us the game.

Conditions didn't help. but some of the desperate clearances, and passing, were awful.

Marius and Wyness were the only plus points for me.

[Mee]

According to the radio, Duncan was mouthing off to the ref, even after winning a free kick and the offending player booked!  :018:

[gordyfromsneck]

I am afraid I too am rapidly losing patience with Marius, he had a couple of shots on goal today and they were powderpuffs, as were just about all the on target efforts. Contrary to what the ther folk on the thread might say, their keeper was busier. St. Mirren however were very impressive, in terms of posession and will to win. We won, I suspect purely by virtue of our goal, not by our level of play, which was woefully mediocre. Luck for once was on our side.

Good guys: Roy, Russell, Bazza, Hastings, Cowie

Bad Guys: Marius

Jury out:

Fraser - no excuse for the kicking.

Proctor - mixed bag.

Wyness - mayeb he doesnt perform when Marius doesn't. A couple of flashes.

Brewster - Why no Blackie, but a good early substitution.

I enjoyed the game well enough, but really there is very little to excite.

[Johnboy]

We were pish :007: A point would've been about right, but I'll take three when we play like that!!

St. Mirren dominated from start to finish(even after going down to 10 men), and it was desperate defending/luck that won us the game.

Conditions didn't help. but some of the desperate clearances, and passing, were awful.

Marius and Wyness were the only plus points for me.

I just don't begin to understand how you can describe today's performance as p1sh.... :024:

We won the feckin game against quite a decent side.... :018:

[davieB]

Well, you're idea of quality play must be different to mine then. We were awful for most of the match

St Mirren a decent side?? Fecks sake, thank god Dargo's still out, because if they'd had a scorer on there they'd have gubbed us.

[Caley]

Niculae sounds like he is having a nightmare!

I don't care if he never scores for us, fact is we play far better when he's in the team. Contrast the passing game we played today with the long ball tosh played against Motherwell.

Defence did ok today, but we definitely rode our luck in the 2nd half. McGuire playing a 1-2 with Fraser's right-hand post for example.

Most disappointing thing for me was Fraser's kicking. He made a fair number of unforced errors and needs to work on this part of his game.

[CELTIC1CALEY3]

Fraser had a clean sheet!!

The wind was like playing in a gale - has no one else experienced it?

Three points were vital and we got them. We need to scrape a few draws now against the big guns.

[Guest TinCanFan]

I felt that ICT were pretty poor in parts of the game and were lucky not to get beat.  Here's by player by player ratings:

1. Fraser - Made a couple of decent saves and looked pretty comfortable thogh his kicking could of been better. 7/10

3. McGuire - Played okay but lucky not to score an own-goal. 6/10

6. McBain - Not bad. 7/10

7. Wilson - Not bad until he was taken off. 6.5/10

12. Duncan - Played well on the counter attack though some of his touches weren't too good. 6.5/10

14. Munro © - Looked good in defence. 6.5/10

15. Cowie - A good goal today. 7/10

16. Hastings - Best I've seen him for a while. 7/10

18. Niculae - Played well though shooting wasn't too bad. 7/10

19. Wyness - Not bad. 7/10

29. Proctor - Played quite well. 6.5/10

Subs:

24. Rankin - Played well when he came on. 6/10

13. McAllister - Wasn't on long enough to make an impression. 4/10

Referee - Mr Crawford Allan - Better than Chris Boyle against Motherwell but was still pretty poor. 4/10

ICT Fans - Too quite yet again and the booing of McAllister was unexeptable.

[Drochit Blue]

just need to scrap for points till Jan, then see what Brew can do (if he has anything to do it with).....jury out until then

very few teams at the arse end of the table can play their way out of trouble, points will do over performance till New Year

[Pele_Is_God]

4 very tough games coming up so a win was vital. If Brew is given a decent enough budget in January then i'm pretty confident we can match if not better last seasons position.

Niculae was getting a bit of a slagging of Davie and Irvine, but then again what do they know??

[caleyblue]

thought with the conditions we did not bad a win is a win when your near the bottom a couple of results and we r out of the trouble

[Guest Spectre]

I thought we were terrible and lucky to get any points let alone three.

We completely surrendered the midfield to them.  Marius, Russell and Cowie really the only bright spots, at least Marius doesn't lose the ball in contact every time unlike Wyness.

God knows what Fraser was doing, he seemed to have given up in the second half, didn't try to come for anything, just watched the defense deal with it or miss.

[caleyblue]

if we surendered the midfield how could cowie and duncan be bright spots they are the midfield ??  yeah we were lucky but could have scored more as well 

[Guest WynessLegend]

Very difficult conditions today, but despite that we got three points and kept a clean sheet.

I thought Proctor, Mcguire, Duncan, Cowie, Wyness and Niculae put in a huge amount of effort and, under the circumstances, had an excellent game.

[CaleyD]

Glad of the 3 points in a game which could easily have gone the other way.

Our defence rallied well, but still weren't on form, and Niculae and Wyness made the best of the scraps they were fed.

Our midfield was a bit hit and miss IMO.  They weren't holding the ball very well and were conceding too much ground to St Mirren which in turn put extra pressure on the back line.  Going forward we lacked support on many occasions with either Wyness or Niculae having to try and go it alone.

The big difference for me today was that the team seemed to be playing with a bit more spirit again.  The way they fought and scrapped for the ball on many occasions was great and I don't think I can recall a 50/50 ball that bounced in our favour or things could have been a little more positive.

The conditions were difficult and we handled them better as a team than St Mirren.  For all the possession they had they did very little with it and I think Fraser only had one real save to make the entire match....unfortunately it seemed to be much the same story at the other, but it wasn't for the want of trying and with the way things have been going lately we can't ask for much more than that.

Niculae put in a power of work today, chased everything and was unfortunate on 2 or 3 occasions that the ball never fell more kindly for him which hampered his shots.  A couple of times he maybe should have done better.  I also noticed him encouraging the other players a lot more today and trying to gee them up a bit...as someone else said above, we look a better team with him in the squad, regardless of whether he is scoring or not.

[Johnboy]

Agree with your comments (CaleyD) re the midfield... I thought Black was missed today.... and not even on the bench.

Shouldn't we be told why?

He looked to be fully fit and in good form playing in the reserves during the week.

[Guest CaleyJaggy]

Hey, why has noone mentioned the half time entertainment  :018:    I managed to get the ball through the hole to get a grand total of 25 pts and 2 tickets to belfast  :021:

[CaleyD]

Black was missing as a result of his actions at the Motherwell game, we've been told nothing official but I've heard enough from "reliable" sources to leave me 100% certain that was the reason.  I also heard that he had his performance money for the Motherwell match withheld by way of a fine.

Agree that we missed his presence in the middle of the park today, we really needed a "terrier-like" player of Blacks ilk and none of our other players can do that job.

As I commented elsewhere during the week, I'm all for discipline, but Brewster needs to find some way of dealing with that which doesn't have such an impact on the team.  It didn't cost us today, thankfully, but it easily could have.  Had it not been for the fact we scored first and the team seemed determined to dig in and not surrender the lead then we may have missed Black a **** of a lot more.

Hey, why has noone mentioned the half time entertainment  :018:    I managed to get the ball through the hole to get a grand total of 25 pts and 2 tickets to belfast  :021:

Well done...although I was sure you were offside when you scored  :015:

[Ivy League]

What was wrong with blackie today... was he injured??  or was he not playing due to his alleged behaviour at half-time of Motherwell game??

[Guest TinCanFan]

I think it's because of the latter or as Brew says, he is being "rested".

[Pele_Is_God]

CaleyD heard fom various people it was because of his tantrum so that's good enough for me. He needs to learn his lesson so good move from Brewster I would say.

[Guest sophia]

Mee,

The reason Russell was giving the referee the sharp edge of his tongue was something to do with Mason not getting a caution for a ?professional? foul.

This allowed Mason a degree of latitude that he accepted inasmuch as he carried on with his thuggery until he was booked.

Because of your self imposed exile, you have to rely on Scott Davie and Brian Irvine, who whine their way through the games, for your info.

Davie, of course, missed the fact that the referee did not book Mason.

CaleyD,

I know a journalist shouldn?t reveal her sources but I got similar info on Black from Ronnie MacKay this morning. It was on page 80!

[Scarlet Pimple]

"Marius put in a power of work today"..well that is nice to hear I must say and a blessed change from some of the sniping that has been directed at his performances of late.

If he is working his butt off what more can you expect from a player?--so he hasn't scored a lot but he IS making a significant contribution.

You know something, if Marius agreed suddenly out of the blue to

reduce his overall pay to that of the other players I think the carpers would shut up overnight.

But he is there regardless of all the girny negative  chit chat  and he is going to stay there so I suggest we accept the siuation  & start to say really positive things about him and the team as a whole from now on. If not this season could be a roller coaster and ultimately very depessing.

And don't you think that it is about time that we had a bit of luck and ICT got a few breaks for a change? So savour this match, possibly, as just that --a bit of a break with quite a few positives in it. :021:

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Sophia - what the feck is going on - we are feckin falling apart - should I go fer the feckin jugular as most peeple in the know ???

[RiG]

The stuff about Black was in todays Sun. He left the ground at half time and was spoken to by CB on Monday. He was fined his appearance money for his tantrum. From the article it was said he was annoyed that even though he wasn't the worst performer he was still hooked and that other players who were sent off weren't fined.

As for todays game I agree with DavieB.

Defence still very shakey. Took forever to clear the danger, awful header by McGuire towards the end. Our midfield was non existent apart from their one piece of link up play to score. Cowie starting on the left?  :017: Up front I thought Wyness and Niculae did well but Niculae was somewhat ball greedy and wasteful.

As for the ref I think this will sum him up nicely!  :008: