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St Mirren v ICT

Demented Zebra

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Demented Zebra

Demented Zebra

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46 minutes ago, alternative maryhill said:

I'm sure you probably do know the broad outline of this, but just in case not, here's the 30-second summary:

  • Between about 2012 and 2015 we develop a genuinely fine team that is a lot more than just stuffy and hard to break down and achieves three consecutive top-six top-flight finishes and a Scottish Cup;
  • As happens to small clubs which build relatively successful sides, we lose a number of our best players (the Shinnies, Christie, Marley Watkins, etc) to bigger clubs and John Hughes does as John Hughes does and replaces them with jobbers;
  • After a sixth-place finish, during which season he is denied the opportunity to talk to Dundee Utd, Hughes throws his toys out of his pram about the club's lack of ambition, and walks;
  • As if to prove Hughes correct, the club makes the catastrophic decision to award club legend and management rookie Richie Foran a four-year contract to manage the club;
  • Foran replaces Hughes' jobbers with bigger jobbers, makes an absolute c**t of everything, and his dreadful team is relegated from the Premiership with a deceptively flattering points total;
  • Foran walks after apparently unproductive talks with the interim chairman, and John Robertson, despite not having applied for the job, is phoned and asks if he fancies it;
  • More jobbers (and Josh Meekings and Greg Tansey) depart, and even bigger jobbers, apparently all taken unseen from two management agencies, arrive;
  • Higher earners who have been unable to leave frozen out;
  • Supporters collectively hold heads in hands;
  • Championship season begins much as anyone who has watched the club (or has watched Mark Ridgers) over the past couple of years could have predicted.

Seriously, any pundit, or worse, ICT supporter, who had us among the favourites for the title before the season started needs their head examined. There's simply not a team in there at the moment, and that's not surprising given all the upheaval of the past three seasons. A lot of the departures were unavoidable, but there have also been a lot of terrible decision made at club and team management level. The 'stuffy' sides that you probably remember from the 00s were largely based on continuity of staff team spirit and on signing players who were already well known to the manager; obviously not every club can sustain that model completely successfully if it actually leads, as it did in our case, to being almost too successful, but it feels like everything we are doing now is the exact opposite of what the club built itself on. 

For a while yesterday, I thought there were signs that a team was starting to evolve out of the chaos: Charlie Trafford looks to have been a decent signing at the base of midfield and having him there frees Ian Vigurs and Liam Polworth to play in their best positions further forward in the middle of the park; Polworth in particular caused St Mirren a few problems playing behind Baird. Our wide players, Riccardo Calder and Alex Cooper, were largely ineffectual though, and unless the goalkeeping and defensive issues are addressed, then we're just going to keep throwing in goals whenever we come under the slightest pressure. Ridiculously, we have Owain Fon Williams, a goalkeeper, one of our highest earners and apparently fit, sitting at home because he 'isn't in Robertson's plans'; hopefully Carl Tremarco will soon be fit enough to replace the calamitous Joe Chalmers at left back; but we still badly need an imposing and positionally-aware centre half of the Josh Meekings type. At the moment, a bottom three or four finish is looking very likely for us.           

Bit harsh on yourselves there i thought if had you an out and out striker you would do well. Baird is not the right man. You want to hear a story regarding a club making the wrong decisions of which fatal consequences occur ? Unfortunately i dont have the time to spend all day typing the short of it is all small provincial clubs  go through it at some stage. ICT have punched well above its weight with great success you should be proud of that.  

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alsy

alsy

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1 hour ago, Demented Zebra said:

Bit harsh on yourselves there i thought if had you an out and out striker you would do well. Baird is not the right man. You want to hear a story regarding a club making the wrong decisions of which fatal consequences occur ? Unfortunately i dont have the time to spend all day typing the short of it is all small provincial clubs  go through it at some stage. ICT have punched well above its weight with great success you should be proud of that.  

Don't get me wrong; I am enormously proud of the what the club has done. They've been a brilliant team to support for most of their twenty-three-year existence and have achieved far more than pretty much anyone would have dreamed of. It's just very depressing to see how quickly it has unravelled, even though it was unavoidable that we would see some decline. You're right, though: plenty of provincial clubs have been through it, and obviously we have no right to think that we should be immune to that. 

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Demented Zebra

Demented Zebra

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35 minutes ago, alternative maryhill said:

Don't get me wrong; I am enormously proud of the what the club has done. They've been a brilliant team to support for most of their twenty-three-year existence and have achieved far more than pretty much anyone would have dreamed of. It's just very depressing to see how quickly it has unravelled, even though it was unavoidable that we would see some decline. You're right, though: plenty of provincial clubs have been through it, and obviously we have no right to think that we should be immune to that. 

ICT will bounce back JR will build a good team can see the shoots already. I kid you not when I say you are the best team we have played so far and Morton beat us 4-1

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Highland Capital

Highland Capital

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19 hours ago, houston_bud said:

 


What's happened to Fon Williams?

 

Sat at home doing nowt most likely.  Robbo understandably wanted to move our higher earners on (and OFW is one of them seemingly) and signed Ridgers under the impression that OFW would be leaving before too long.  OFW is still here though and thus picking up a wage - also meaning we have three first team keepers at the club (four if you count Cameron Mackay who's played a handful of first team games and was on loan last season at Elgin).  It's turned into an absolute farce, even more so when Robbo's golden boy has turned into an absolute dud.

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houston_bud

houston_bud

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1 hour ago, Highland Capital said:

Sat at home doing nowt most likely.  Robbo understandably wanted to move our higher earners on (and OFW is one of them seemingly) and signed Ridgers under the impression that OFW would be leaving before too long.  OFW is still here though and thus picking up a wage - also meaning we have three first team keepers at the club (four if you count Cameron Mackay who's played a handful of first team games and was on loan last season at Elgin).  It's turned into an absolute farce, even more so when Robbo's golden boy has turned into an absolute dud.

Certainly sounds a farce. I never thought Ridgers was that bad for St. Mirren actually, but he can't have played any more than a handful of first team games in the past few seasons. Not exactly an inspiring signing to be your number, and he certainly doesn't look to be up to speed.

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RiG

RiG

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21 minutes ago, PB1994 said:

He's not a great keeper but that is just not true

It's not completely true but it's not too far off IIRC.

Out of the seven competitive games we've played so far this season where we've conceded Ridgers has been at fault for a goal in five of them with only the draw with Morton and the loss to Dundee United being the games where I can remember us conceding but him not being at fault for a goal.

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PB1994

PB1994

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19 minutes ago, RiG said:

It's not completely true but it's not too far off IIRC.

Out of the seven competitive games we've played so far this season where we've conceded Ridgers has been at fault for a goal in five of them with only the draw with Morton and the loss to Dundee United being the games where I can remember us conceding but him not being at fault for a goal.

Not trying to totally defend him as he has been awful but of all of our competitive games I would say he's only cost us results against St Mirren and Dunfermline. The men in front of him should be getting just as much stick imo, as if they were even close to being competent at this level the opposition wouldn't be getting to test the keeper so much.

Should probably add that I don't think we would have got points from St Mirren or Dunfermline if we had OFW in goals for example.

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flyingscot

flyingscot

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Camera work for yesterday's highlights is horrendous. Proper motion sickness stuff. Too far zoomed in and literally hundreds of unnecessary micro corrections. 
That being said, Gav Reilly definitely gets the second goal as it's not quite over the line at the point where he gets a toe on it and still could have been cleared, even though the Inverness player trying to clear it looked like he was just figuring out how to use legs for the first time whilst doing so. 


Our highlights are terrible. I know it is students but the picture quality is rubbish if you compare it to Ayr/Falkirk and others and the camera work is less than brilliant.
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flyingscot

flyingscot

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There's simply not a team in there at the moment, and that's not surprising given all the upheaval of the past three seasons. A lot of the departures were unavoidable, but there have also been a lot of terrible decision made at club and team management level.


Not dissimilar to our experience of being relegated. Win cup. Lose good players, not replace them adequately. We also had too many loanees, which was a risk as for every Newton and Dummett there was some right rubbish signed. Replaced cup winning manager with rubbish manager and get relegated despite offloading rubbish manager midseason. Spend a few seasons in Championship at the wrong end of the table. Inverness will improve. Not sure Robbo is the man to do it however.

Ridgers was ok with us. I guess he had a goal in him however not anywhere near the worst keeper I've seen at Saints recently. Dumbarton have him.
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