Ayrv Inverness / Inverness v Ayr - Play Off Quarter Final

[Naeleftfit]

44 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Walsh and Doran both won player of the season awards for us and Doran got in the Championship team of the year so they've hardly been bypassed by our constant stream of long balls.

Maybe it’s just against Ayr they adopt that style of play because of physical dominance.  I recognise the fact both are good footballers and have seen them in a few live games.

[Comrie]

8 minutes ago, eez-eh said:

The majority of teams in this league are more physical than us which wouldn’t be difficult since we’re a team of midgets. Our season turned in the second half of the 3-3 Ross County game when they started pumping the ball forward for their little and large act to cause havoc and it’s as if our defence have been completely scarred since.

The infuriating thing is that we still play some lovely football when we keep it on the deck, but we seem to get roped into playing long balls and I can’t understand why. I wonder if the players have lost the confidence to play the ball out in the same way as they were in the first half of the season, but f**k me you’d think they’d catch on that high balls aren’t fucking working.

Which is strange, because when County beat you 2-1 in Dingwall, Ayr went more direct in the second half with diagonal balls over Watson's head and we seriously struggled for half an hour or so.

[Guest]

On a happier note, it was great to hear "Stay" by Sash at the final whistle last night. One of my favourite tunes from yesteryear and sounded splendid being pumped out on our upgraded quality PA system.

[Lochwood]

Very early it was clear we needed height in the team  when Adams who was doing a good job got injured , every team we have played after the first quarter started playing straight thro the middle and route one.

I was criticised for shouting for height in the team by all and sundry, A big centre half and another striker in January and we would have been close.

The lad Rose  good luck to him who I like will get murdered in England with the height in those leagues same goes for Shankland the centre half’s will eat him up if he goes to England.

[eez-eh]

6 minutes ago, Comrie said:

Which is strange, because when County beat you 2-1 in Dingwall, Ayr went more direct in the second half with diagonal balls over Watson's head and we seriously struggled for half an hour or so.

It did work for us at the beginning on the season, I’m not trying to say we were some sort of Barcelona mk 2 in the first half of the season because we did play a high ball when it suited us but the problem is that it now seems to be our only tactic. And it doesn’t work as well with Shankland’s dip in form - previously he’d win just about everything that was hoofed up at him but it’s a different story now.

edit - we also had Bell, Adams and Geggan to call on early in the season - all of whom have more physicality between the 3 of them than the rest of the squad.

Edited May 8, 2019 by eez-eh

[rb123!]

Fair play to Inverness for matching the admission price for last night

[I'm Brian]

1 minute ago, HopeStreetPieStall said:

McCall whining about the playoff format is delicious stuff. Wasn't a problem any of the years when you weren't in it. 

 

Peak Scottish Football right there. 

You not got a league one thread to comment on?

[DeStevie]

30 minutes ago, Lochwood said:

Very early it was clear we needed height in the team  when Adams who was doing a good job got injured , every team we have played after the first quarter started playing straight thro the middle and route one.

I was criticised for shouting for height in the team by all and sundry, A big centre half and another striker in January and we would have been close.

The lad Rose  good luck to him who I like will get murdered in England with the height in those leagues same goes for Shankland the centre half’s will eat him up if he goes to England.

Spot on with all your points. Rose and Shankland will really struggle stepping up

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, HopeStreetPieStall said:

McCall whining about the playoff format is delicious stuff. Wasn't a problem any of the years when you weren't in it. 

 

Peak Scottish Football right there. 

Back to your seaside league forum and leave the "big boys" to their own discussions................

[Ira Gaines]

11 minutes ago, HopeStreetPieStall said:

McCall whining about the playoff format is delicious stuff. Wasn't a problem any of the years when you weren't in it. 

 

Peak Scottish Football right there. 

Not as delicious as the fact that Ayr were actually good enough over the season to be able to moan about it, while Falkirk are papped into League One.

Get doon.

[DeStevie]

48 minutes ago, eez-eh said:

The majority of teams in this league are more physical than us which wouldn’t be difficult since we’re a team of midgets. Our season turned in the second half of the 3-3 Ross County game when they started pumping the ball forward for their little and large act to cause havoc and it’s as if our defence have been completely scarred since.

The infuriating thing is that we still play some lovely football when we keep it on the deck, but we seem to get roped into playing long balls and I can’t understand why. I wonder if the players have lost the confidence to play the ball out in the same way as they were in the first half of the season, but f**k me you’d think they’d catch on that high balls aren’t fucking working.

The surface at Ayr isnt the best for playing the ball out. Firhill surface is in great condition and thats where we probably played our best football this year. Keeper was playing out from back and midfied were spraying passes about Smith opening goal prime example

[itzdrk]

We barely mustered a chance in our two trips to Inverness this season never mind actually scoring a goal, but we will go up there with three central midfielders and one winger to huff and puff, concede an obligatory goal from a corner and get told by McCall it couldn't be any better than this. 

Spoiler

 

[rb123!]

Doohan

Muirhead Rose Harvie

Smith Kerr Murdoch Miller

McCowan Shankland Moffat

Would go with that on Saturday, need to go for it, would probably leave us brutally exposed on the counter but f**k it we've got nothing to lose.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Lochwood said:

Very early it was clear we needed height in the team  when Adams who was doing a good job got injured , every team we have played after the first quarter started playing straight thro the middle and route one.

I was criticised for shouting for height in the team by all and sundry, A big centre half and another striker in January and we would have been close.

The lad Rose  good luck to him who I like will get murdered in England with the height in those leagues same goes for Shankland the centre half’s will eat him up if he goes to England.

I do understand where you're coming from with regards our lack of height and physicality in our side, however this wasn't a problem in the first part of the season when we were dominating possession by playing the ball on the deck and just passing teams off the park. It is good to mix it up at times, but our real strengths are our passing and moving game which we seem to have stopped playing recently for whatever reason.

The defending in England is even worse than it is up here, Rose will be excellent as the emphasis is all on playing out from the back (especially at Coventry), as for Shankland, he's one of the best Centres I've seen in recent years at holding the ball up and warding off the attentions of hatchet man Centre halfs, so I really can't agree with that part of your post, but of course we're all entitled to our opinions...........

[UpInTheAyr]

32 minutes ago, itzdrk said:

We barely mustered a chance in our two trips to Inverness this season never mind actually scoring a goal, but we will go up there with three central midfielders and one winger to huff and puff, concede an obligatory goal from a corner and get told by McCall it couldn't be any better than this. 

  Hide contents

 

Depressingly accurate,I suspect McCall's talk of giving  it a go is to do the same again and hope it's different this time.

[vikingTON]

7 hours ago, TheScarf said:

We get it, we have 3 or 4 guys over 6 foot.  

Its sign of a good manager when he plays the tactics best suited to the players he has. And the sign of a bad one who has no plan B..... 

Yep, Inverness have been one of the few teams I've seen this season whose tactics haven't boiled down to 'slow sideways passing until we shell it out the park under pressure'. The standard of this second tier is so bad because half the division's managers now seem to think that they're Pep Guardiola and must instill some shan 'philosophy of football' as well as winning games, which they're not clever enough to do. 

That's why you've got a decent chance of promotion with a squad that on the whole isn't up to much IMO.

[TheScarf]

6 minutes ago, virginton said:

Yep, Inverness have been one of the few teams I've seen this season whose tactics haven't boiled down to 'slow sideways passing until we shell it out the park under pressure'. The standard of this second tier is so bad because half the division's managers now seem to think that they're Pep Guardiola and must instill some shan 'philosophy of football' as well as winning games, which they're not clever enough to do. 

That's why you've got a decent chance of promotion with a squad that on the whole isn't up to much IMO.

Indeed.  Robertson's footballing philosophy is 'try to win games by getting the ball into the opponents box and scoring goals'.  Something a lot of teams in this division don't seem to want to do, strangely.

[jm86]

For the offside goal, can't see why people keep chuntering on about camera angles. You don't need to worry about that when you can see clearly that the scorer is inside the box, and no Ayr player is, when the pass was made. Open and shut case m'lud. No need for discussion really. The officials got it wrong and totally changed the dynamics of the game. Pair of  incompetent chancers.  It's not them again on Saturday is it ?

Still maintain the penalty was incredibly soft. Just hope we get the rub of the green up in Inverness, but I doubt it somehow. Almost got to the stage of getting my tin foil hat out and indulging in a bit of conspiracy theorising.  Have always believed our officials might be incompetent but were so in an unbiased way.  This game strained that belief to the utmost. Ref obviously thought a 1 goal lead might not be enough for ICT and gave them a clearly offside goal just to be on the safe side. Then when we got one back he shat himself and gave them a soft penalty to restore the 2 goal lead. The fly in the ointment of this half baked theory is that I cant quite work out why the powers that be would rather have Inverness in the top league than us. Am I missing something here ?

Regarding ICT style of play , I agree  that Robertson has rumbled our weakness against height and strength and rightly got his team to play that way against us. The results speak for themselves. I assume they play more football against bigger and more physical sides than us.  For us, only Muirhead and Rose have any real aerial presence, as Rose showed with his goal where he seemed head and shoulders above the defence.,  Great header.

[RiG]

Interesting read this. ICT basically saying that playing this game on Saturday will cost them money given how much of the ticket sales the SPFL hoover up.

[rb123!]

14 minutes ago, jm86 said:

For the offside goal, can't see why people keep chuntering on about camera angles. You don't need to worry about that when you can see clearly that the scorer is inside the box, and no Ayr player is, when the pass was made. Open and shut case m'lud. No need for discussion really. The officials got it wrong and totally changed the dynamics of the game. Pair of  incompetent chancers.  It's not them again on Saturday is it ?

Still maintain the penalty was incredibly soft. Just hope we get the rub of the green up in Inverness, but I doubt it somehow. Almost got to the stage of getting my tin foil hat out and indulging in a bit of conspiracy theorising.  Have always believed our officials might be incompetent but were so in an unbiased way.  This game strained that belief to the utmost. Ref obviously thought a 1 goal lead might not be enough for ICT and gave them a clearly offside goal just to be on the safe side. Then when we got one back he shat himself and gave them a soft penalty to restore the 2 goal lead. The fly in the ointment of this half baked theory is that I cant quite work out why the powers that be would rather have Inverness in the top league than us. Am I missing something here ?

Regarding ICT style of play , I agree  that Robertson has rumbled our weakness against height and strength and rightly got his team to play that way against us. The results speak for themselves. I assume they play more football against bigger and more physical sides than us.  For us, only Muirhead and Rose have any real aerial presence, as Rose showed with his goal where he seemed head and shoulders above the defence.,  Great header.

Steven McLean the ref on Saturday so hardly an improvement.