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Season 16-17 and beyond


Dan Clark

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I am not a big poster on forums but as a life long fan I feel the time has come to express my concerns. As a club what we have achieved over the years has been fantastic with many happy and good memories especially winning the Scottish cup last season. I am now going to reverse back to Terry Butchers reign a the club and this was when my concern started. Going back to 2010 approx that is where I see the change starting to happen. Esson Proctor Tokely Golabek Duncan Foran Munro McBain Ross Sutherland Shinnie and that is just to name a few of players you could say had Caley Thistle blood in them. I put Esson and Foran in as i feel now the same applies to them. From then to now the club has lost all its local players or players who would be committed to Inverness. The club has completely lost its identity over the years. Looking at the current squad we have hardly a local player left in it. What this does is make it harder to keep players at the club as most players now at the club have no association or ties to Inverness.  We are basically a club paying their wages to play football and in my opinion the players will give their all but ultimately will be looking to move on to other clubs. What has happened now is just about each season we are loosing players left right and centre and have to rebuild every season. John Hughes Inherited quite a good team and I thought had had taken the club even further forwards but this season I feel we are in free fall. Again going back to players we have lost a lot of good players over the last season or 2 but the players brought in have been poor well not just poor very poor. I will give exception to Miles Storey as i think he has done well but again it looks like he will not be around next season well not at this club anyway. It does really worry me for the season ahead. Firstly I do believe we will be an Spl team next season and we should make enough points to avoid the play off position. With players leaving in a few weeks I am terrified at the quality of players we might see at this club next season. We for some reason have a very unbalanced squad in regards to positions both in Butchers and Hughes reign. We always seem to have to rely on 1 striker. A team should have approx 2 gks, 8 Defenders, 8 midfielders, 4 strikers. Take  away some defenders and strikers and add midfielders and you have Caley Thistle WHY ???. We used to play wonderful attacking football that was a join to watch but again since Butchers days and now Hughes we seem to be set up so defensive. Our tried and trusted 442 was replaced with 4231 and since then i have found it hard to watch at times. Our strikers sorry our striker is running around like a headless chicken getting zero support from anyone. You could put Messi, Lewandowski, Vardy any top striker in this team and they would not get many goals. There is just no support. More often than not when we do manage to go forward the ball seems to end back at our own gk. To sum up my whole rant ditch the 4231 formation once and for all and go back to 442. 4231 might be a good formation for some away games but at home 442 should return. The big question is can Hughes bring in the quality that this club is starting to desperately need and sort the way the team is playing and get players up the park. Or do we start a fresh page some people are saying Foran but i dont think he is the answer but 100% he should be in the management set up ie assistant or coach if we did replace Hughes. One thing for sure is we need to find some local players or bring on our own youths so we have some Caley Thistle blood back on the park. I fear we may never hear hes one of our own sung at the stadium much longer if not. 

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Nobody wanted to buy tokes, golly or Munro because of their limited technical ability but they gave 100% as individuals and for the club. However Ross, Shinnie, Christie and polwarth who were developed here and our technically very good which means other clubs will want them. It's a credit to our youth coaches but also more likely they will move on. Our problem which I hope we can change is tying these promising players down early on longer contracts, even if it's a somewhat risky strategy. 

We don't necessarily need local players, but it's important we keep the leaders and clubmen, Warren, Foran, drapes etc and it seems it's what we are trying to do. These are the few of the few guys who are tied down.

It's a natural cycle in every team as you pointed out. A small club which has sucess will be cherrypicked (see Leciester in the near future). Its impossible to sustain. Let's be happy our previous cycle brought so many highs but be prepared for a rough ride until we bring the next mixed batch of youth or  gems from nowhere. But in the meantime we may suffer. I have concerns about Hughes ability in transfer market and our season next year but he has earned himself time in my book. I shall judge him after the summer recruits have settled next season.

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Maybe a change of strategy on recruitment. It worked exceptionally well for Butcher the lower leagues of England but maybe we should look closer to home. There must be a couple of decent players in the Lower divisions or Highland league who for one reason or another have been overlooked and with better coaching and full time training could make an impact. Surely we don'y always have to go scouting around Kendall Town and Kidderminster to find a player.

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44 minutes ago, forresjags said:

There must be a couple of decent players in the Lower divisions or Highland league who for one reason or another have been overlooked and with better coaching and full time training could make an impact.

There could be, but there are 2 factors

a) We are no longer in the 3rd or 4th tier of Scottish football so the step up to SPFL from part time is huge. We were lucky that guys like Munro, Tokely, McBain, Christie managed to take us through the levels to SPL, however during that time we signed players of a level at the league we were in and players moved on. We are finding players who are full time in leagues down south struggle and its a higher level, just because someone is from locally and feels affinity doesn't mean they will be good.

b) Some player like Rory MacAllister and others are part time and want to be, they may have good qualifications and a well paid job with a supplementary part time football wage on top - this may actually amount to more than our wage budget can stretch for a full time (entry level pro) - many don't want the gamble of dropping salary in the hope they 'may' make it.

If we want local players, we have to take youngsters and give them a proper grounding and development where they can get into the first team - which was done with Christie and Polly, sadly guys like Ferguson & Sutherland haven't developed to that level yet. Basically if we were picking up good enough youth players then they would be in the team, but how many SPFL teams are churning out lots of high quality young home grown local talent - its sporadic at best throughout.

 

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The reason we have to pick from England is they are largely unknowns and will see the SFPL as a stepping stone. Promising Scottish players from lower league clubs generally have other central belt clubs offering the same as we can and the players don't have to uplift families/move ALL to way to Inverness, middle of nowhere etc etc. 

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6 minutes ago, Stirling Observer said:

The reason we have to pick from England is they are largely unknowns and will see the SFPL as a stepping stone. Promising Scottish players from lower league clubs generally have other central belt clubs offering the same as we can and the players don't have to uplift families/move ALL to way to Inverness, middle of nowhere etc etc. 

I am sure the likes of Gregg Stewart at Dundee and Andy Roberston when at Utd were 'unknowns' and they have successfully made the step up from part time football.

Not sure how the geographics and moving families ALL the way to Inverness fit in to though.   

  

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Andy Robertson moved to DUtd at 18 where a development fee was paid, where do you suggest ICT get that money from? We can't afford transfer fees, not even development. Additionally for every Robertson there is an Aiden connelly who moved in the same deal, where is he now, unable to make a struggling DUtd team - investments like this are a gamble and for and club with our limited finances not very viable.

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16 minutes ago, bdu98196 said:

Andy Robertson moved to DUtd at 18 where a development fee was paid, where do you suggest ICT get that money from? We can't afford transfer fees, not even development. Additionally for every Robertson there is an Aiden connelly who moved in the same deal, where is he now, unable to make a struggling DUtd team - investments like this are a gamble and for and club with our limited finances not very viable.

I think you will find that Roberston was used as an example of what is available in the lower leagues of Scotland and how they can make the step up if given the opportunity.

But yet again it is turned into 'where do you suggest we get the money from'. Think the whole of Scottish football knows we have the 2nd lowest budget in the SPFL thay all have been told enough times by our management.

    

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56 minutes ago, forresjags said:

I think you will find that Roberston was used as an example of what is available in the lower leagues of Scotland and how they can make the step up if given the opportunity.

But yet again it is turned into 'where do you suggest we get the money from'. Think the whole of Scottish football knows we have the 2nd lowest budget in the SPFL thay all have been told enough times by our management.    

I'm pretty sure we have a bigger budget than the likes of Stirling and Montrose TBF[/pedant].

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Yes we have Rig but, as has been said earlier, many good players in the lower leagues dont want to turn pro simply because they have ood paying full time careers and are not prepared to risk losing all that. When I worked in Grangemouth many moons ago I worked alongside players who were constantly being asked to turn pro but where they worked they had careers with great promotional prospects and a job, till retirement, with good pension and welfare benefits. They just weren't interested in giving that all up. Its very difficult to give up a career for the prospect of another short career when you can do one and still enjoy the other

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7 hours ago, Dan Clark said:

I am not a big poster on forums but as a life long fan I feel the time has come to express my concerns. As a club what we have achieved over the years has been fantastic with many happy and good memories especially winning the Scottish cup last season. I am now going to reverse back to Terry Butchers reign a the club and this was when my concern started. Going back to 2010 approx that is where I see the change starting to happen. Esson Proctor Tokely Golabek Duncan Foran Munro McBain Ross Sutherland Shinnie and that is just to name a few of players you could say had Caley Thistle blood in them. I put Esson and Foran in as i feel now the same applies to them. From then to now the club has lost all its local players or players who would be committed to Inverness. The club has completely lost its identity over the years. Looking at the current squad we have hardly a local player left in it. What this does is make it harder to keep players at the club as most players now at the club have no association or ties to Inverness.  We are basically a club paying their wages to play football and in my opinion the players will give their all but ultimately will be looking to move on to other clubs. What has happened now is just about each season we are loosing players left right and centre and have to rebuild every season. John Hughes Inherited quite a good team and I thought had had taken the club even further forwards but this season I feel we are in free fall. Again going back to players we have lost a lot of good players over the last season or 2 but the players brought in have been poor well not just poor very poor. I will give exception to Miles Storey as i think he has done well but again it looks like he will not be around next season well not at this club anyway. It does really worry me for the season ahead. Firstly I do believe we will be an Spl team next season and we should make enough points to avoid the play off position. With players leaving in a few weeks I am terrified at the quality of players we might see at this club next season. We for some reason have a very unbalanced squad in regards to positions both in Butchers and Hughes reign. We always seem to have to rely on 1 striker. A team should have approx 2 gks, 8 Defenders, 8 midfielders, 4 strikers. Take  away some defenders and strikers and add midfielders and you have Caley Thistle WHY ???. We used to play wonderful attacking football that was a join to watch but again since Butchers days and now Hughes we seem to be set up so defensive. Our tried and trusted 442 was replaced with 4231 and since then i have found it hard to watch at times. Our strikers sorry our striker is running around like a headless chicken getting zero support from anyone. You could put Messi, Lewandowski, Vardy any top striker in this team and they would not get many goals. There is just no support. More often than not when we do manage to go forward the ball seems to end back at our own gk. To sum up my whole rant ditch the 4231 formation once and for all and go back to 442. 4231 might be a good formation for some away games but at home 442 should return. The big question is can Hughes bring in the quality that this club is starting to desperately need and sort the way the team is playing and get players up the park. Or do we start a fresh page some people are saying Foran but i dont think he is the answer but 100% he should be in the management set up ie assistant or coach if we did replace Hughes. One thing for sure is we need to find some local players or bring on our own youths so we have some Caley Thistle blood back on the park. I fear we may never hear hes one of our own sung at the stadium much longer if not. 

Firstly, paragraphs are underrated.

Secondly, the SPL no longer exists.

Thirdly, we had a very attacking side under Butcher, scoring more goals in 2012-13 than any other top flight season in our history.  Our average of two league goals per game when he got us promoted was pretty impressive too.

Fourthly, "local players" - only Ross, Munro and Shinnie from that list weren't signed from other clubs.  The others simply stayed here for a long time, which makes them no different from Draper, Warren and others currently at the club.  We've never had a squad mainly built of local players - in fact we've barely had any local players.  It's never harmed us before.  I'd rather have a guy from down south who can play a bit than a local boy who can't.

Fifthly. "442" - the only thing that bothers me more than Mike Bassett "Four-four-f******-two" types are those who insists we need a big man up front.  Anyone who watches football with even half a brain knows that formations and systems are largely overrated these days - one team's 4-2-3-1 involves four forwards and is very attacking, and another team's 4-2-3-1 involves five midfielders and is very defensive.  If the poster can name one elite team who play an orthodox 4-4-2, I'd be surprised.  As for our "tried and tested 4-4-2", I'm not sure we've played such a system regularly since Wyness and Dargo were up front.  Even then, Wyness used to drop deeper so it was more of a 4-4-1-1.  I suppose we went with Rooney and Foran up top in the last few weeks of the promotion campaign.

Sixthly (is that a word?), why people think Foran would be a good coach is not clear - there is more to coaching than loyalty to a club and a willingness to shout a lot.

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On 08/04/2016 at 4:43 PM, Alex MacLeod said:

Yes we have Rig but, as has been said earlier, many good players in the lower leagues dont want to turn pro simply because they have ood paying full time careers and are not prepared to risk losing all that. When I worked in Grangemouth many moons ago I worked alongside players who were constantly being asked to turn pro but where they worked they had careers with great promotional prospects and a job, till retirement, with good pension and welfare benefits. They just weren't interested in giving that all up. Its very difficult to give up a career for the prospect of another short career when you can do one and still enjoy the other

Spot on, Alex. 

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4-4-2 is dead. The only team that I can think of regularly playing a 4-4-2 towards the top of a 'top league' in the world is Leicester City, and they are a bit of an anomaly . Look at every big team in the world they all play a variation of 4-5-1/4-3-3. I don't necessarily like it but its the way it is, teams are looking to have an extra player in midfield because they are scared of being overrun.

As for the suggestion that local players being more likely to stick around just because they are from the area is a load of twaddle. I present Nick Ross and Ryan Christie as two recent examples, football is a short career and players are going to try and earn as much as they can during their 10-15 years in the game. It doesn't matter what team you have affinity for if a club is going to give you a tenfold increase on your salary (Ryan Christie), or guarantee you first team football on a longer term contract (Nick Ross) you're going to take it.

Also while I'm sure there are gems to be found in any league using Andy Robertson as an example of whats available in the lower leagues of Scotland is like using Jamie Vardy for whats available in the lower leagues in England. For every Jamie Vardy or Andy Robertson theres about 45647656875343245376453 Dean McDonalds or Andrew Barrowmans.

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Without having any figures, I'd expect Hamilton to have the lowest budget in the league as they have the lowest average attendances and really struggle to get fans through the gate even more so than we do, then ICT followed by Partick/Kilmarnock and St J. One thing that might be more interesting is to define performance based on budget and we will probably find that over the last 5 years ST J come out on top as a team that consistently over-achieve based on investment and salaries.

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4 hours ago, bdu98196 said:

Without having any figures, I'd expect Hamilton to have the lowest budget in the league as they have the lowest average attendances and really struggle to get fans through the gate even more so than we do, then ICT followed by Partick/Kilmarnock and St J. One thing that might be more interesting is to define performance based on budget and we will probably find that over the last 5 years ST J come out on top as a team that consistently over-achieve based on investment and salaries.

Then maybe we should be following the SJ business model if that's the case.

Edited by caleyboy
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If I am honest I am quite worried about the future of the team as a few things have come to a head this season it seems, for instance how threadbare the squad is and how little budget we have to build and maintain a competitive squad. It seems we will be ok this year but we are relying on a loanee striker and it's only understandable that players would move team for longer contracts and a bit of stability, any of us would...as for the next few seasons to me there are worrying signs.

I have a lot of other worries regarding the club off the field too, it just seems business wise there doesn't seem to be much forward thinking. 

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18 minutes ago, fursoboysh said:

If I am honest I am quite worried about the future of the team as a few things have come to a head this season it seems, for instance how threadbare the squad is  squad size is relative to the budget of the club, looked worse than it is this year due to the amount of injuries all at the same time and how little budget we have where do you suggest the money is coming from? Should we follow the business model of Rangers or Gretna?? to build and maintain a competitive squad. It seems we will be ok this year but we are relying on a loanee striker and it's only understandable that players would move team for longer contracts and a bit of stability, any of us would...as for the next few seasons to me there are worrying signs. Possibility or relegation every year, but that wouldn't be the death of the club. Obviously we all want to sit at the top table, but it's not exactly worrying

I have a lot of other worries regarding the club off the field too, it just seems business wise there doesn't seem to be much forward thinking. I sympathise with the board. They seem to be doing their best with what they have - planning ahead is difficult when you have no certainties. Long contracts and other things are risky when there is a very real chance of playing in the championship. Plus investing in development etc would be great, but again, where's the money coming from?

Can't agree. See comments in bold. 

 

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10 hours ago, bdu98196 said:

Without having any figures, I'd expect Hamilton to have the lowest budget in the league as they have the lowest average attendances and really struggle to get fans through the gate even more so than we do, then ICT followed by Partick/Kilmarnock and St J. One thing that might be more interesting is to define performance based on budget and we will probably find that over the last 5 years ST J come out on top as a team that consistently over-achieve based on investment and salaries.

Stevie May and Michael O halloran.

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St Johnstone have a healthy income from other stadium facilities such as conferencing, restaurant and astro pitch which all help subsidise the football. Fortunate to have had many of these facilities provided for them when they moved ground.

To be in a position to emulate them would require significant capital expenditure  (millions) and we don't have that just now.

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Stuart Cosgrove was saying on Off The Ball the other week that due to McDiarmid Park's proximity to the biggest crematorium in Tayside, it's not unknown for St Johnstone to make more in a single day of holding funeral meals etc. than it is from a St Johnstone home game!

Edited by Renegade
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