St. Mirren 1 - 2 Inverness CT

League Match
Saturday, February 14th, 2015, 3:00 PM at St Mirren Park, Paisley
Attendance: 3,154
Referee: Bobby Madden
St. Mirren Inverness CT

Goalscorers
Jim Goodwin (68) Greg Tansey (3)
Ryan Christie (60)

Team Managers
Gary Teale John Hughes

Starting Eleven
Mark Ridgers
Jason Naismith
Marc McAusland
Jim Goodwin
Shaun Kelly
James Dayton
John McGinn
Isaac Osbourne
Stephen Mallan
Yoann Arquin
Steven Thompson
Ryan Esson
Josh Meekings
Gary Warren
David Raven
Nick Ross
Graeme Shinnie
Greg Tansey
Ross Draper
Ryan Christie
Danny Williams
Marley Watkins

Bench
Marian Kello
Emmanuel Sonupe
Gregg Wylde
Thomas Reilly
Jeroen Tesselaar
Jack Baird
Lewis Mclear
Cameron Mackay
Daniel Devine
Carl Tremarco
Liam Polworth
Alasdair Sutherland
Lewis Horner
Calum Ferguson

Substitutions
Lewis Mclear -> Yoann Arquin (46)
Emmanuel Sonupe -> John McGinn (61)
Gregg Wylde -> James Dayton (71)
Liam Polworth for Danny Williams (90)

Bookings
None. Ross Draper (82)
Marley Watkins (85)

Red Cards
None. None.
Appearances & Goals To Date
Ryan Esson (GK) 164 apps -
Josh Meekings 133 apps3 goals
David Raven 103 apps1 goal
Gary Warren 106 apps11 goals
Greg Tansey 87 apps14 goals
Danny Williams 51 apps2 goals
Marley Watkins 58 apps9 goals
Nick Ross 164 apps12 goals
Ross Draper 106 apps7 goals
Graeme Shinnie 172 apps6 goals
Ryan Christie 44 apps7 goals
Liam Polworth (sub) 32 apps1 goal

Starting Lineup
Youngest Player:Ryan Christie (19 years 359 days)
Oldest Player:Graeme Shinnie (2016 years 200 days)
Average Player Age:27 years 247 days
Domestic Players:8 (72.73 % of starting eleven)

Matchday Squad
Youngest Player:Cameron Mackay (15 years 71 days)
Oldest Player:Graeme Shinnie (2016 years 200 days)
Average Player Age:24 years 210 days
Domestic Players:13 (72.22 % of matchday squad)

First Team Debuts

Milestones

Early bird catches the worm:

Greg Tansey scored inside three minutes to give the visitors an early lead, but despite creating plenty, it took until the hour mark before they eventually nabbed a second goal through Ryan Christie. The Buddies looked down and out at this point but the home side were thrown a lifeline when Jim Goodwin scored with a header after a corner. With the bulk of the possession, Inverness did enough to claim all three points as they held on for a 1-2 victory.

RIG was at the game and he has posted his report on CTO

In the first half I thought we were excellent. Our passing was quick, crisp and positive. We carved Saint Mirren apart on numerous occasions and, as many have said, could have been out of site by half time. Watkins passed up a couple of good chances. One, similar to those against Partick the other week, where he burst in behind the defence but sent his effort wide. The other he tried to lob Ridgers who blocked his initial effort and then from the follow up Watkins skewed the ball wide.

Meekings had a header come off the bar. Some folk said that it might have gone in but even from the normally non conclusive highlights it doesn't look like it's anywhere near going over. Draper also had a good chance as well but his effort was blocked by the backside of a Saint Mirren defender.

Luckily we did find a way through and it was from great build up down the left and, more incredibly, from a throw in which we are normally dreadful at. Shinnie played a neat interchange with Christie (I think), receiving the ball back and headed goal wards before cutting the ball back to Tansey who was arriving at the edge of the box and he coolly passed the ball into the net. Great goal from an ICT perspective. As above we dominated the first half but seemed to lose our way in the second half somewhat. Similar to games against Ross County and Partick Thistle in recent weeks it looked like we might pay for not holding a bigger lead. Our passing seemed to become less adventurous and more focused on keeping the ball but minus the attacking intent we had seen in the first half. Saint Mirren looked a lot livelier and more resilient in the second half and we struggled for a time to break them down. Fortunately we did grab a second goal when Raven managed to break down the right and play in Christie who, after what looked like an amazing piece of skilful miscontrol, sent Ridgers the wrong way and doubled our lead.

Saints struck back when a corner was met by Goodwin as he out muscled Warren and steered a header past Esson. After that we had our backs to the wall for most of the rest of the game and MccAusland passed up two great opportunities to draw Saint Mirren level. The first, again from a corner, found him free towards the back post but he couldn't quite bring the Buddies back on level terms. The second chance, perhaps the better of the two, came fro ma free kick which evaded everyone and found its way to MccAusland who seemed somewhat taken aback that it had gotten as far as him, and he couldn't adjust his body to get a header on target.

A fine result which should have been more emphatic than the scoreline depicts but thankfully we got away with passing up some of those great chances. It will be interesting to see how we rectify the apparent easing off in games after a good start. Hughes seems to be aware of this (based on his post match interview) but we haven't seen any changes yet to stop this from happening. We dropped a vital two points against County because of it so hopefully it won't happen again.

Match report written by tm4tj/RIG



Pld W D L F A +/- Pts
1. Celtic 24 18 3 3 48 13 35 57
2. Aberdeen 24 16 3 5 41 21 20 51
3. Inverness CT 25 16 3 6 37 23 14 51
4. Dundee Utd 24 14 3 7 48 33 15 45
5. Hamilton Academical 26 12 5 9 39 32 7 41
6. Dundee 26 9 9 8 38 38 0 36
7. St. Johnstone 25 10 4 11 22 27 -5 34
8. Kilmarnock 25 9 5 11 26 32 -6 32
9. Partick Thistle 25 6 7 12 32 32 0 25
10. St. Mirren 26 5 3 18 21 43 -22 18
11. Motherwell 25 5 3 17 18 49 -31 18
12. Ross County 25 3 6 16 24 51 -27 15