Partick Thistle vs Inverness Caledonian Thistle

[Fuctifano]

Just watched the youtube 2 minute highlights, bizarrely they don't show the ICT disallowed goal but do show our penalty appeal in the first half which given who the ref was I'm surprised wasn't given. Sadly Azeez appears to have been marking Warren when the throw in was taken and he switches off.

 

[Rednyella]

Totally agree that this was reminiscent of Jags earlier in season and last couple of seasons. Letting in late goals are our thing. We were dominate in every area and even with the injuries we looked odds on to win the game. Lawless injury shouldn't be bad. He hyperextended his knee in that challenge but should be ok. Osmans I'm more worried about. Looked like a hamstring or quad muscle injury. But no way we should be losing or drawing with that mob. I don't see ICT winning many more games. Poor upfront and didn't have any creativity.
Killie away next week will be tough as they are on a bit of form.

Erskine played well but I just want a touch more from him. I felt he was only in 2nd gear all game. I think he has more to give and if he did we'd create much more and score more goals.

[GrahamJags]

I actually thought the (albeit brief) introduction of Scott Boden made the difference. Our centre halves seemed to struggle with the additional striker when ICT were piling folk forward.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Gary Warren's last-minute, last touch, injury time (offside ) header saved our bacon in Maryhill. Great sliding celebration and 194 Invernessians went ballisitic once again. We don't usually have any luck at Firhill but we got dollops of it yesterday. We didn't deserve a point but WTF . Kris Doolan's 10th goal of the season looked to have earned Plastic Whistle their fourth straight Premiership win. They actually looked like a good footballing team but more like a Spanish outfit than from the hipster West End of Glesga. But good old Gary Warren nodded home at the far post for the Highlanders, who had a first-half strike from Henri Anier disallowed with Billy Mckay standing offside.

We had the first effort of the match when Greg Tansey fired a 25-yard shot wide and he followed that up with 3 or 4 others which all went off target, other than a tame back-pass free kick. But at least he had a go !!. But that was their our only real threat as the Maryhill Magyars totally dominated possession and we either hoofed or gave them the ball back. "Musthavea  Walrus look-alike, sound alike" was proving to be a handful and got the home fans MOM. Warren was the man to mark him but he was played wide right of a three man defence !! Early injuries to Abdul Osman and Lawless should have helped us to but feckin didn't. Lawless had'nt even be replaced and they were down to 10 men when Anier produced his only "effort" of the day and we thought that we had stolen an equaliser. But the flag went up for offside against wee Billy. Need to see the highlights BUT if he didn't touch it that would have been mightily harsh. It would have been great to have gone in 1-0 up but 0-0 was undeserved but happy to take it.

But in the 56th minute the DOOLAN inevitably put the Whistle ahead and many of us braced ourselves fer a Hamilton away repeat. Thankfully our shaky defence all of a sudden began to look resolute or did the Whistle sit back on their Laurel or Hardys. And even the shaky Fon Williams looked safer and produced what I can only describe as a "World Cup save" and it probably also saved our season. AND THEN two minutes into the two minute allotted stoppage time Gary Warren rose at the back post (looking suspiciously offside ) to head in the equaliser from Billy King's cross. 194 Invernessians applauded the sliding celebration an "oh, oh Gary Warren filled the Maryhill air and many Plastic Whistle supporters were either on their way oot or had feckin left already. 

FON WILLIAMS   Still looked shaky and I shudder when anything goes at him but his second half performance literally saved our bacon.

WARREN   Played on the right of a three man defence for ALL of the game. Give me a break but our saviour once again.

LAING    Did OK in the central position. He, like many others, didn't seem to understand our system but he stood his ground and can only get better.

McCART   Bet he never witnessed anything like this at Parkdread !!  But as Laing he stood his ground.

BRAD MACKAY   Played in yet another position - like a right sided wing back. And he got plenty of space and plenty of the ball. He did OK but he simply didn't know how to play in that position.

RAVEN  Played in the left sided wing back position but he popped up all over the place. What a gut-busting performance. Eat, Sleep, Raven, Repeat - MOM by a feckin country mile.

TANSEY   Now that was more like the Tansey of old. Like Raven he was clearly motoring at 100%. Only player who looked comfortable on the ball, passed successfully, looked to shoot and very close to MOM.

POLWORTH   I thought that he put in a lot of effort and was clearly the runner fer Tansey and Vigurs. He did not deserve to be substituted and appears to have become the whipping boy.

VIGURS   Best footballer in the team - Most skillful player in the squad - One of my faves - BUT if I could have got on to the pitch and past the stewards I would have slapped him. He feckin gave up. DISGRACEFUL and should have been hooked instead of Polworth. But he still managed to get another yellow card !!

ANIER  Sorry but why did he even start ? He looks like the mercenary that he is. Except he is sticking his head in the feckin sand rather than fighting.

BILLY Mckay    If there ever was a player to feel sorry for - enuff said !!

Took King on in the 62nd minute and played him where ?  Answers on a postcard please.

Took Cole and Boden on in the 81st minute for the ineffectual Vigurs and Anier. Probably saved us the point and we pressed Whistle. But Cole in central midfield !!

Richie Foran said : "It's a huge point today. (No **** Sherlock). I thought it was a very close game (what !!), but we've played against, for me, a top-four side today (what!!) . They are an excellent team, strong aggressive, can pass the ball and have goal scorers (what!!), so it's a big point. I always believed we'd score (what!!) and we've scored a lot of late goals this season. If you put balls in the box you've got a chance (what!! - when!!). It was a great leap [by Gary Warren] and a great finish. It was a good ball hung up by Billy King. "I'm delighted for the players and we're going in now to two home games. Results have gone our way, so it sets it up for a cracking game of football next week against Ross County."

OK lets sum up in a nice, positive manner. We got out of the Jail End yesterday. Any of us would have taken a point. Can see the reason for playing 3-5-2 but why not with King and Cole wide ? Or why didn't we change it earlier ? We were terrible for most of the 92 minutes and 33 seconds. With Draper and Tremarco back and getting back to a well worked system then we can get 6 out of 6 points at the Dump. But I don't feel comfortable singing "WE ARE STAYING UP " YET

[Fuctifano]

Warren's goal was nowhere near offside, and it was the correct decision to disallow Anier's goal even if not one Thistle player appealed for it!

 

 

 

[Armand 2]

Infuriatingly frustrating. We'd be duking it out for fourth place if we'd kept it tight at the back for the last few minutes of countless games this season.

The injuries distrupted our flow in the first half particularly so in the respect of Lawless who was having a fine game. With Osman going off, it meant Edwards dropped into a position he's devoid of the tactical discipline to play; he's a ball watcher and is drawn to it, out of position all too often. His energy is far better utilised in the "number 10" role.

We're badly missing Welsh in midfield in my opinion and his absence is going to be even more pronounced in the coming weeks. Barton tried to dictate things from the middle of the park and did so without really imposing himself on the game. Still feel that we are a far better team with him at the back.

It wouldn't be Thistle if we didn't make it unnecessarily difficult for ourselves. Instead of going to Killie next week and potentially going 7 points clear, we're now going and possibly dropping out of the top half. If we're without Osman for any length of time, it's going to be as damaging as Cerny's absence last season.

As for Inverness, it was a travesty that they took anything from that game to be frank but credit to them for staying in it and converting the chance that arose. Think they'll be struggling to get out the mire they're in though.

[jagsfan57]

Archibald suggesting the pitch wasn't great
"The pitch didn't help because we were playing some decent stuff and either the final pass eluded us or the pitch played a little bit of havoc with people's touches as well."
Isn't that excuse usually reserved for away games?  
P.S. Conceding late goal needlessly. Jags are almost as bad as PSG. 

[jagsfan57]

Recently, Rodgers and McInnes have criticised the home pitch

[RiG]

Don't think it was as smash and grab as some have said. I wouldn't say that Partick dominated the game and both sides seemed to have the same number of (half) chances during the course of the 90. No question we weren't great but over the course of the game I think we deserved a point and it is always pleasing when a team who time wastes loses a goal right at the death. I thought Warren was offside but Fuctifano has it spot on with those screengrabs, he clearly is onside when King plays the ball in. Poor defending from Thistle but we didn't really cover ourselves in glory for the opening goal failing to defend a couple of crosses in quick succession before Doolan put the home side ahead from close range. Partick should be a good shout for top six but I get the feeling that if they were perhaps more positive after going ahead then they might well have taken us apart. Instead they seemed to adopt a quite negative approach to the game for the most part. They probably should have had a penalty in the first half when Warren tried to scale Doolan (I think) in the penalty area.

I guess the personnel available forced us to go 3-5-2 at the start and we struggled with that for the early part of the game. Warren really wasn't with it at the right side of the back three and Lawless was linking well with Booth on the Partick left. A lot of their early pressing came down that side. Any momentum that Partick had was killed off when Lawless went off injured and we started to become a bit more comfortable after that. Despite this we struggled to really create anything of note save for the offside 'goal' and some long range efforts from Tansey. A lot of our attacking play took the form of punts in the general direction of Mckay and Anier which was not very successful and you could see the former getting very frustrated throughout the game with what he was being given to work with. Seemed odd to adopt this style and not play someone like Fisher or Boden from the off to try and win some headers. I've not seen anything from Anier to suggest he should be anywhere near the starting XI.

Vigurs again was poor and, as mentioned, at points he just gave up chasing back. Really poor effort from the guy especially when he's been giving it big licks saying he wants to prove the boo boys wrong and whilst I don't like to see our players getting booed when they are subbed I could see why the fans did give him an earful. That was not the kind of performance we need from our players at such a desperate time.

Tansey and Raven did well for us especially the latter given he was on the opposite side of the pitch he usually plays on. I was surprised we chose to go with two defenders to try and provide some width especially two right backs. I wondered if playing King wide might have given us something of a more natural balance in the 3-5-2.We certainly looked a wee bit better when he came on. 

Given our record at Firhill I was happy to get a point but the performance still didn't give me much confidence going into the next lot of massive games for us. Hopefully getting Tremarco and Draper back from suspension will allow us to get back to a more balanced line up and we can kick on from there.

ETA: Just watched the highlights on the BBC site. Whilst Mckay probably was offside it's a bit pathetic that the linesman never raised his flag until after we had scored and were celebrating amidst protests from the Partick players. Ultimately it was the right decision but why did it take him so long to flag?