Talking Points from the Premiership

A rather unfortunate snapshot of Dundee United's Radoslaw Ciernziak, here

Kilmarnock: no plan, no confidence, no idea where the next points will come from
Well, this Motherwell win has made things interesting in the battle to avoid the playoffs.  Kilmarnock have lost seven in a row for the first time since 1980/81...a season which finished up with them being relegated.

There were few signs at Fir Park on Friday night that they can turn this form around in the next two matches.  Motherwell were superior in every area of the pitch, and even after Josh Magennis scored early in the second half to bring it back to 2-1 the home side looked the more likely to score.

Lord knows what Gary Locke's plan was.  Given the enormous discrepancy in goal difference, a draw would have pretty much guaranteed safety.  It would have been understandable if he had opted for a conservative, defensive lineup, but equally he might have chosen to have a right go with some busy, energetic attackers, given that Motherwell's defence has been rotten all season.  He did neither.

The 4-2-3-1 he went for should have given Killie midfield superiority, but they completely failed to put any pressure on the ball - not surprising given that the immobile Lee Miller was at centre-forward, the rotund and frankly lazy Paul Cairney on the left flank and the lightweight Rory McKenzie (who quite possibly didn't touch the ball before being hooked at half-time) in the no.10 role.  Motherwell were able to get well up the pitch without hassle, and when they did go long they had a willing Lee Erwin chasing the ball into the channels, or Scott McDonald dropping deep.

In contrast, Killie struggled to make any direct passes stick, as Miller wasn't chasing anything and Josh Magennis' energy was wasted on the right flank (where he got little change out of the outstanding Stevie Hammell).  To make matters worse, their passing from the back was as dreadful as I've ever seen, with the centre-backs giving the ball away repeatedly.  It was a nightmare evening for Lee Ashcroft, who also missed a sitter at 1-0 and was utterly outfought and embarrassed by Erwin for Motherwell's second.  Manu Pascali was little better and was subbed in the second half to save him from being shown a second yellow card.  The only consolation is that they got Mark Connolly, their best central defender this season, some gametime after a long absence with a broken collarbone.

Locke threw the dice at half-time and brought on Tope Obadeyi - who I assume wasn't fit to start - and Greg Kiltie, effectively splitting his team into 5 defensive players and 5 attacking ones.  Unsurprisingly, there was little cohesion, and Well should have put this to bed long before Lionel Ainsworth's third.

Momentum is critical at this time in the season; Motherwell now have some, and play relegated St. Mirren next - a very winnable match indeed.  Killie, in contrast, have no obvious plan, no confidence and no idea where the next points might come from.  I asked last week if they might do a 'Hibs'; now everyone's contemplating that question. LS

Aberdeen can't find the key to beating Celtic
I closed my 'Talking Points' piece after the previous fixture at Parkhead in March by noting that "...while the games between the two sides have been closer than results suggest, the facts remain that Celtic have still won ... I think even diehard Dons fans would admit they don't deserve the title over the team they haven't been able to earn a single league point against."

Two months on, plus ça change... Aberdeen matched Celtic and lost, yet again.  It's a problem for Derek McInnes, and one he will have to address if he has genuine aspirations of closing the gap even further on Ronny Deila's charges next season.  At the moment, not only can the Dons not beat the Celts when it counts, they can't beat them when it doesn't.

The goal that decided this particular encounter encapsulates much of what polarises neutral fans about Scott Brown as both a player and a personality.  Starting the move at the edge of his own penalty area with a sliding challenge to dispossess Barry Robson (the sort of two-footed lunge that can only ever end up with either winning the ball or conceding a free kick) Brown then ran the length of the park to eventually get on the end of a Stuart Armstrong cut-back (the Hazlehead Zola having brilliantly beaten first Shay Logan and then Ash Taylor to get his cross in from the left byline) to score from three yards out.

There has been some post-match focus on the pie that was thrown at the Celtic captain in the immediate aftermath of the goal.  (That an Aberdonian would throw away a pie that they had paid money for was more of a shock to me.)  I'm perfectly fine with opposition fitba'ers celebrating goals - supporters are often very precious when players 'give it back' in spite of being perfectly happy to 'dish it out' for 90 minutes - but I do wonder whether the full 'Broonie' display was necessary in front of the Merkland Stand, considering this is the home of the Dons' family section.

For Brown's part, he later laughed the incident off as 'banter' - he actually tried to eat the pie that was thrown at him (perhaps a further concern considering Deila's apparent obsession with dietary business, contrasted with Brown's high-profile League Cup final preparations...) - and alludes to the character ('gallus'?) of a competitor who thrives on the confrontational nature of such big match occasions.  Whether it was necessary to court controversy in the process was probably a moot point for Brown, for whom winning was all that mattered on the day. Brown also gave due respect to Aberdeen in his post match interview, acknowledging they had been Celtic's closest rivals this season.

 The problem for Derek McInnes next season is how the Dons can close the gap even further.  In that respect, the Nature Boy Rik Flair said it best:- "To be the man, you have to beat the man." ("Woo!")  At the moment, not only can the Dons not beat the Celts when it counts, but they can't even beat them when it doesn't. MI

County choose a bad day to be unlucky
So, St. Mirren came into this game already relegated, started with five players aged 21 or under (and brought three more off the bench), were absolutely under the cosh for the whole game...and managed to win 2-1 thanks to a deflected shot and a last-gasp penalty.  Football, eh?

That great run of County's seems a long time ago now; since the split, they've managed a single point out of a possible nine.  This was just one of those days, though; they created chances at will but their finishing was just abysmal.  On another day they would have scored four or five and no-one would have begrudged them that.

Jim McIntyre now needs to spend the whole week reassuring his players that, if they play like that at home to Accies next week, the goals will come - and they surely will.  The fear is that too many of his squad keep looking at a league table which shows them just three points ahead of Motherwell, and they get the heebie-jeebies.  Arguably the worst thing about this loss was the sending off of keeper Mark Brown - whilst hardly one of the best goalies in the country, the veteran is at least reliable, while backup Antonio Reguero is anything but.  But Brown will be suspended for the Accies clash.

If County fail to win next Saturday, then they will probably need some sort of result at Rugby Park on the final day to avoid eleventh...and so, I suspect, will Kilmarnock.  That could be interesting. LS

Fourth place is no closer to being decided
One of the many things that makes me furious about modern football is that a 12 team league can have something as absurd as “The Battle for Fourth Place!”  At this stage of the season we should be paying little regard to a scrap over mid­table positions.  But we are where we are, and thanks to Caley Thistle reaching the Scottish Cup Final, a possible Europa League reward for the fourth best team in the Premiership at least makes this battle worth something.

Zero points and three goals separate St. Johnstone and Dundee United, meaning that had there been a winner on Saturday they would have been odds-on to secure fourth.  As it was, they played out a surprisingly entertaining draw on a ploughed field at McDiarmid Park.  The home side started strongly but as the game wore on, United gradually gained control and a draw looked like a fair result.  But if St. Johnstone miss out on a European spot, Dave Mackay'sstinking penalty will be a significant reason.

Jackie McNamara will be cheered by having a couple of penalty decision he could have a whinge about, including a late incident when Nadir Ciftci, the poor man’s Diego Costa, threw himself to the ground.  It looked like the ref got both decisions right, not that that always matters.  This is modern football after all. IM

Partick will miss outstanding O'Donnell
Let's face it, there wasn't really much at stake at New Douglas Park, which made it all the more baffling that, at least initially, the BBC website put the match report as its top headline ahead of the rather more interesting events at Dens Park and the Global Energy Stadium.  That's not to say that the teams weren't up for it.  Accies have found their feet at last under Martin Canning, and must fancy emulating the 2005/06 Inverness side which finished seventh but with more points than the sides in fourth, fifth and sixth.  Partick, meanwhile, would stand to gain an extra £45,000 in prize money (not an inconsequential sum in Scottish football these days) if they were to leapfrog Hamilton.

The concession of a late equalizer to teenager Greg Docherty probably scuppers Thistle's hopes of nicking seventh, though.  They had taken the lead in this game through a goal from right-back Stephen O'Donnell - his fifth of the season.  In comparison to other prolific defenders, that's the same as Jason Denayer has managed in the league, and one more than Virgil Van Dijk.  It also makes O'Donnell his side's joint-second top scorer in the Premiership this season.

In hindsight, I don't know how I forgot about him for the blog's Team of the Year; he certainly deserved to be under consideration, anyway.  In a system which heavily depends on full-backs for attacking width, he thrives.  Sadly for Thistle, Alan Archibald has pretty much confirmed his departure at the end of his contract this summer; Jackie McNamara, who previously managed him at Firhill, is known to be a big fan, but it is more likely that O'Donnell will try his luck down south.  If he does move to England, hopefully he will fare better than ex-teammate Aaron Taylor-Sinclair, who made the same decision last summer but has not exactly benefitted from it. LS

ICT should sign up Ofere sharpish

Just when some were starting to doubt whether ICT could drag themselves across the finishing in to secure third place in the league two very timely victories for the Highlanders against both Dundee sides, the first time they had recorded back to back wins since the middle of January, secured the all important third spot in the league which guarantees Caley Thistle the chance to play European football for the first time in their history.

A solitary goal from Nigerian forward Edward Ofere was enough to secure three points for Inverness.  Ofere has been in red hot scoring form for the Highlanders, bagging four goals in his last five league games. Not the most graceful of players, at times displaying the skills of a Lionel Djebi-Tade hybrid, Ofere has taken some of the pressure off Marley Watkins who has struggled when asked to play further up the pitch.  In doing so, Ofere has given Hughes food for thought as he weighs up extending his contract beyond the end of this season.  With the aforementioned Watkins yet to commit to a new deal Hughes may decide to secure the services of Ofere and make him the focal point of his attack in a Colin Nish style as per the Hibs side of 2009/10 (except he's a damn sight better than Colin Nish! Ed).

Praise is not just reserved for the impressive Ofere. Two utterly outrageous pieces of defending from Devine and then Esson were key to the ICT victory. Devine somehow raced back to clear a goalbound effort off the line and Esson turned back the years to claw a McPake header off the line as Dundee tried to secure an equaliser.

With goals often hard to come back this season for ICT the Highlanders have frequently relied on their defence to secure victories for them. Desperate defending has been a regular occurrence at various points of this season which often puzzles Inverness supporters as the team frequently create excellent chances but are wasteful in front of goal. Only four times this season have ICT scored more than 3 goals in a game. The majority of victories have been by a single goal.  Caley Thistle need a goalscorer for next season and one player currently at the club is staking a big claim to be that player.

Martin Ingram (MI) is our Aberdeen Correspondent.  Legend has it that he is the tallest man in the Red Army.  He writes regularly for Aberdeen fanzine The Red Final.

Iain Meredith (IM) is technically a Rangers fan, but these days he tends to support them ironically.  He only agreed to help with this blog because now he can tell his wife that he's "only watching the game to help a friend out".

Lawrie Spence (LS) has ranted and spouted his ill-informed opinions on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007.  He has a life outside this blog.  Honestly.

Andrew Sutherland (AS) occasionally writes for When Saturday Comes.  He would never miss an ICT match unless he was offered a date with the lead singer of CHVRCHES...who he would then take to said ICT match.