Inverness' Ryan Christie injures knee in win over Motherwell
Tuesday 10 November 2015 15:31, UK
Inverness and Celtic will await news of Ryan Christie's knee injury after the midfielder was helped off in obvious pain during Caledonian Thistle's 3-1 victory at Motherwell.
The on-loan Celtic player now looks set to miss Scotland Under-21s' European qualifier against Ukraine on Friday after twisting his knee at Fir Park.
Inverness assistant manager Brian Rice said: "He's in a brace and he's hobbling. It looked like a twist at the time. His knee just gave way. We will need until it settles down.
"I don't think there's any chance of him going with the 21s from what I've seen. It's a huge blow for the kid ahead of the 21s, which he loves going away with. He's a massive player for us.
"It's just the way our luck's going. In 36 years in football I have never seen an injury list like it in my life.
"I said on Friday let's put all that to bed. Then Danny Williams in training and Ryan today. It was just a wee groin injury, but Danny had a fantastic game for us last week.
"But all credit to the other lads. We are down to the bare bones and it's the same lads training and playing, and great credit to them."
Caley Thistle brushed aside their bad luck with the help of a rare re-taken penalty from Greg Tansey, which opened the scoring in the 11th minute after Josh Law was ruled to have encroached when Connor Ripley saved the first attempt.
Ripley was beaten by a huge deflection as Miles Storey's shot hit off Kieran Kennedy in the 45th minute and Motherwell midfielder Liam Grimshaw hit the bar from 20 yards moments later.
A spectacular volley from Iain Vigurs made it three before Louis Moult squeezed the ball home from Lionel Ainsworth's far-post cross, but Inverness held on for three Ladbrokes Premiership points.
Motherwell and Stephen McManus in particular were left to rue Craig Thomson's performance.
The referee awarded the penalty when Danny Devine's header hit the arm of McManus, who had his back to the ball, and the defender received a second yellow card in injury-time after catching Dani Lopez with an arm at a high ball.
Motherwell boss Mark McGhee said: "I thought the referee had a poor game, but the referee is our best referee. At some point he is going to have his worst game. We have our worst game sometimes and today I thought he had his.
"I came out of it still finding a lot of good in it. The result is obviously hugely disappointing, it's not the result I expected or wanted. The game got away from us.
"You can argue all you like about the penalty, it hit his arm but he's not looking at the ball. I don't know, maybe it is a penalty.
"As far as following into the box, if you watch any penalty tonight on the TV, every single one would look the same. People will be following in.
"I imagine I've seen it before but I've not seen it for a long, long time that I can remember where the referee made them take it again because somebody stepped in. People do it."
On the red card, McGhee said: "I've just watched it. Mick's put his arm across and has got him here (points to his shoulder) and used his body strength to get across the ball. He is watching the ball."
