ICT -V- Hearts : matchday thread

[SMEE]

We arent being played off the park and are creating chances....but sounds like our players dont have their shooting boots on

[Scotty]

We arent being played off the park and are creating chances....but sounds like our players dont have their shooting boots on

Yeah, we are still in this. lets hope the HT teamtalk is effective.

[alimci]

We arent being played off the park and are creating chances....but sounds like our players dont have their shooting boots on

Yeah, we are still in this. lets hope the HT teamtalk is effective.

Hope so. He is an intelligent and articulate man, after all

[SMEE]

Hope so. He is an intelligent and articulate man, after all

Mwhahahahahahahahah. You Josher!

[strathyjags]

was in it at start and was dead

Picked up a bit when you left Marty.....did you forget your deodorant this morning :thumb04:

this morning,think i forgot it all week

[SMEE]

Vigurs on....Is Brewster learning that subs need time to make an impact, instead of his usual 5 mins

[Alex MacLeod]

What happened to Blackie?

[SMEE]

He got a wallop in the eye and couldnt see out if it I believe Alex. Was in first 20 mins i think

Edited November 15, 2008 by SMEE

[Joonya]

macbain replaced black on 14 mins.

[Scotty]

while we are not getting hammered, and are getting forward, we just dont seem to have any ideas once we get into the Hearts half

[Shooter]

Like i said in chatroom, we have nothing without Black and Cowie..... A bad result and performance by the sounds of it again! Brewster must be running out of time?

[Jay_7]

What will his excuse be this time?

[SMEE]

Brewster? Out of time? I wouldnt count on that am afraid. I dont think our easy osi board have the balls to make such a bold move. Can you imagine the financial implications? And that seems to be numero uno priority

[Alex MacLeod]

From what I heard on the radio we played well. Just couldn't finish. Cant blame Brew for that. He tried all his strikers and still they couldn't do it. May have been better chances if Black had played the full game and / or is Cowie was available but injuries happen.

[CaleyD]

Waiting to here from those at the game, but it didn't sound like the worst of games.

Unfortunately we seemed to lose control of the midfield without Black in there and I don't understand the decision to put McBain in his place when we had Vigurs available on the bench who is far more creative going forward.

Up front, it sounded like we suffered from having strikers who aren't "match sharp" and/or inexperienced, but this was always going to be the case this season and until the window opens there's little can be done about it other than to give the partnership a run of games in the hope they start to click.

Didn't here too much about Imrie during the game, nor McBain when he came on and everything seemed to be coming down the other side via Wilson who sounded like he was having a decent game and getting balls in. I was a little confused when he was replaced, especially when Duncan sounded like he was being largely ineffective.

Not ideal by any means, but sounded like an improvement on some of our recent performances.

From what I heard on the radio we played well. Just couldn't finish. Cant blame Brew for that. He tried all his strikers and still they couldn't do it. May have been better chances if Black had played the full game and / or is Cowie was available but injuries happen.

Whilst I would agree that the performance sounded ok, who would you blame for the fact that we have 4 inexperienced strikers at the club if not the manager?

[Scotty]

You know what, I am not going to have a go at Brewster this week.

I think he picked the right team to start. I might have started with Black/Vigurs instead of Black/Duncan but the rest seemed fine to me. Things went a little pear shaped when Black had to go off. That obviously was not in Brew's gameplan and we have seen before that we lose something when Blackie is either not performing or not on the pitch.

The goal was somewhat lucky. A good goal, but a lucky one and we were never out of the game completely. We just seemed to lack ideas or cohesion in the final third and that was a big problem. We will never win games if we cant score goals !!

[TSTtiger]

just in and while that wasn't our worst performance it was still pretty poor from where i stood. too many players looking like their just not interested and if any game highlighted our desperate need for an experienced striker to play alongside one of our younger guys this was it.we just cant make the ball stick up front and lack the guile to create anything. problem is theres about 8 or 9 other teams looking for the same thing and i cant see where were going to find one.

the ref was an absolute clunt and turned down a stone wall penalty on rooney and another decent shout in second half and basically gave us nothing for 90 mins.

[hislopsoffsideagain]

Gaaaahhh!!!! Another frustrating afternoon - but for completely different reasons to Wednesday. Lots of effort from the players today (with one or two exceptions but we'll get on to that in a bit) but we just didn't have enough quality to break down Hearts, especially with no Cowie, no Black (who got an eye injury early on) and with Barry running out of legs early in the second half. Our defence dealt with Nade much better than expected, with Munro getting the MOM and Proc putting himself about too. Rossco also put in a solid shift. But, Imrie apart, we lacked pace and flair and simply didn't create enough chances.

Two subjects are likely to come up from this game. One is the referee's performance - he made a good pantomime villain with some daft decisions, though I wouldn't say he was the reason we lost the game (Some who think we should have got a pen for a challenge on Rooney might disagree, I guess). The other issue is that of Mr. Andy Barrowman.

When was the last time that seeing a player being subbed has raised a cheer from the North Stand? Unfortunately, Barrowman is going to get a slagging tonight, which may be down to the fact that he hadn't even broken sweat when he was hooked. He took one look at Zaliukas and wet his pants, I reckon. While Rooney gave Berra as good as he got, and went in where it hurts time and time again, Barrowman gave a performance reminiscent of another legendary Caley forward named Rory McAllister.

Anyway, not a bad game, certainly one we didn't deserve to lose. But if we can't get results when we play okay, that doesn't bode well for the rest of the season.

As Scotty said, there's not a lot of reasons to moan about Brew today though.

[TSTtiger]

You know what, I am not going to have a go at Brewster this week.

I think he picked the right team to start. I might have started with Black/Vigurs instead of Black/Duncan but the rest seemed fine to me. Things went a little pear shaped when Black had to go off. That obviously was not in Brew's gameplan and we have seen before that we lose something when Blackie is either not performing or not on the pitch.

The goal was somewhat lucky. A good goal, but a lucky one and we were never out of the game completely. We just seemed to lack ideas or cohesion in the final third and that was a big problem. We willnever win games if we cant score goals !!

aye cant complain too much about the tactics.were just not very good and thats the harsh reality until the transfer window at least.

dont think the goal was lucky though.we invited the boy to shoot and he hit it straight in the corner

[Scotty]

I will defer to those at the game as to whether the goal was "lucky" ... maybe lucky was the wrong choice of words ... what I meant was that on the radio it seemed to come from almost nothing, there was no big build up, no critical defensive error that left him clean through ... it was a shot from distance that was struck sweetly and went in.

[BA]

It wasn't the worst performance this season but it was still fairly poor. Credit to Brew for finally going 4-4-2 but the Hearts midfield bossed us as they had the extra nummbers in there, they seemed to close down a lot quicker than us and that was our downfall as we conceded by not closing down Augiar. I thought the ref was really poor today and Christian Nade spent the majority of the game barging into our centre half unpunished but was very quicky to whiste against us. Andy Barrowman was really poor today, his first touch was awful, his movement likewise and his ability to jump for a header was non-existent, we desparately need a strong, tall centre forward as this is our problem going forward.

[hislopsoffsideagain]

Smileymometer:

Esson :D :thumb04: could he have done better with the goal? Two great stops in the second half but Fraser-esque distribution

Tokely :018: ;) worked hard, did okay against Driver but delivery from attacking areas was a let down

Proctor :015: :D :P Found it hard early on against Nade but got the better of things as the game progressed

Munro :021: :D :D :D I think he's been great this season, and kept it up today

Hastings :D :D :D light years ahead of Wednesday's effort

Wilson :D :D showed some flashes early on and didn't do too bad a job of tracking back either, but looked knackered by half time

Black :D barely a chance to get involved before having to go off

Duncan :D :D the poorest I've seen him all season. With Black off the onus was on him to spray the passes and he couldn't deliver

Imrie :D :D :D :D not enough end product, but kept running and running and seemed to be involved in everything we did well

Rooney :D :D :D impressed with his work-rate and bravery, but again nothing much seemed to come from it

Barrowman :D the footballing equivalent of a chocolate teapot

McBain :D :D another one of his invisible man days

Vigurs :D :D should have been on earlier, used the ball better than the rest of the midfield even in an unfamiliar right flank position

Wood :D :D followed Rooney's example when he came on

[HighlanderICT]

team confirmed ... still no Duff though ..... what has the poor boy done wrong !!!

brewster cant win either way,if he plays duff regularly,he gets accused of burning him out

duff gets a wage rise if he starts 10 games

[Guest Spectre]

It was a great game for about 10 minutes, until Blackie went off. Without him we had nothing in midfield, McBain's not the same quality I'm afraid. The goal was due to not pressurising the ball on the edge of the box, Aguar was given way too much time and space. Plenty of effort from the boys, especially Roscoe and Imrie and no possibility for anyone to complain about tactics and lineup.

Bascially we were outplayed, should have take the chance at the end of the first half but probably can't complain too mcuh about losing.

[kencar]

Another home defeat!!!

ARGGGHHHH!!

Of course it's disappointing but frustratingly we weren't all that bad and Hearts certainly didn't outclass us. We probably merited a draw but ultimately this goes down as yet another loss. I think once Black went off and McBain came on we lost the midfield and Aguiar ran the show for them in the first 45.

We had a great chance to equalise in the first half but it looked like Barrowman and then Rooney miss-hit there shots, the latter only being a foot or so from the goal!!

Will need to see the penalty incident again. Hard one to call but as has been mentioned the ref was pretty hopeless!!

I wonder if we kept the receipt for Barrowman as he just doesn't seem to be working properly? It's hard to explain but he seems to possess Roy's invisibility powers and flits in and out of the game. Of course it can't be easy being an ICT striker because they are fed on scraps. With the exception of Imrie there was little in the way of creativity coming from the middle of the park until Vigurs came on and he at least tried to spray the passes about.

On a sad note I'm afraid Barry is past it for starting games. He is destined to be used as a super sub for the remainder of his career with us. He started off quite promisingly and then faded badly losing possession easily and passing to the opposition

Maurice Malpas got sacked with an indentical league record to the one Brewster has this season. Make of that what you will. Things need to improve quickly because just now we are relying on St Mirren & Hamilton being slighty worse than ourselves. If they manage to beat us in our head-to-heads we are screwed.