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SACK THE BOARD


TopSix

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Not sure if that was Foran's decision. It was finance related again. Yogi appointed buddy Rice in a Good Samaritan move.

And again am I alone in not being too surprised that we may be relegated. I am surprised that we have stayed in the Prem for so long and more surprised (although evidently delighted) that we came back up the next season. We are basically a "feeder" club. We will never hold on to any promising player. We are a "shop window" club. We will never attract more than 3-4000 punters and that clearly affects our financial clout. We will never be able to compete with wages and agent demands. We are still in the "back of beyond" geographically. Our survival is based on "togetherness" and "playing for the shirt". Too many this season do NOT fit that bill. Richie's main Achilles heel is that he still appears to be "one of the boys".

I will always wallow in our cup runs and triumph and the fact that we actually played in Europe. Sugar Daddy required or bye, bye Premiership.

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6 hours ago, TopSix said:

Nothing wrong with Brian being appointed. Sack the board. 

So...you have nothing against Richie's appointment.  Nothing against Brian Rice's appointment.  But the Board need to go?! Wise Up fer fecks sake mun! 

Is it the board that picks the teams, formations, tactics, training regimes? Is it the board that decides when to run with the ball, or whether to pass? 

No, it's not! 

The fact of the matter is, Richie hasn't been great, and the players haven't been great. Although at times, they have been excellent though! And and inch here or there on some passes and shots and we could quite easily be fighting for that 3rd place spot. 

I just don't see what causing turmoil throughout the club is going to achieve?

To me, these seem like reactionary, heat of the moment comments due to where we currently find ourselves....but if you didn't see this hard slog coming then you were living in cuckoo-land! 

I've been to every game this season, except Well away, and I haven't witnessed a relegation team. At times, they've been amazing and at times, far from it, but I don't think they are deserving of their current position. And to say the players or Richie don't care, or are not trying hard enough, is just tosh. You can see it in their body language, hear it in their voices, and see it in their play, but when you find yourself in this position, you get zero breaks of the ball and none of the 50/50 decisions.

Now, when the chips are down, we need to get behind our team. Behind our manager. Behind our Board. Because We Are Caley(thistle), Super Caley, no-one likes us, we don't care! 

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The town doesn't deserve this club, never has. In the meantime Richie has to get a striker and a centre back in on loan, if he has any network at all. Thin margins yesterday against County, the difference between a team that's going well and a team sapped of all confidence. 

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Richie is the one suddenly sapped of confidence. His bearded look and voice do not currently inspire and after both Motherwell and County, he sounds very down but is not blaming the players. Fergie came close to the sack but survived and the rest is history. I am sure Richie will do the honourable thing even though he appears to have a 4 year contract - bound to be performance clauses in that though - if we capitulate to Elgin and Partick.

We were asleep for the first few minutes of each half yesterday but overall played well. I had said in advance of the game that Lonsana needed a rest as indeed did Cole. Once those players were replaced we began to play well but were exposed by the third goal. 

The club has the players to get results against Elgin and Partick but should we lose against Partick, that will be the key moment for action on the managerial front.

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16 hours ago, TopSix said:

I play the club lottery, buy merch and match tickets? You? 

I'm not the one calling for "investment", by which I think you probably mean what this term normally seems to mean in football - people with money donating large amounts of it to football clubs in order to subsidise their loss making activities, principally due to paying players sums way above their realistic market value. At some grounds you really do need to think hard about how much of the ticket price is in effect subsidised in this way.

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After Partick is too late by then we could getting cut adrift and heads down being knocked out of the cup by a lower league team. We have a window with no games and transfer opportunity coming up, it needs to be used.

Back him or sack him. Bring in a decent and experienced assistant or advisor to sort the tactics and formation including the defence and provide cash for players if not prepare for relegation.

We need more than just a striker, the way we play wouldn't help if we had even Griffiths as we just don't create enough and that's due to the position players are used or the tactics. Some on here seem to be happy to accept the levels of signing but I disagree players like Cole, Boden, horner, vigurs just aren't good enough - that's before we consider those just not stepping up or off form. There are none who have come in that have come close to Williams, storey or Vincent and fall way below Watkins or Christie etc. While I accept we had lost quality players and would be a weaker team you'd expect that at least one incoming player might be near the exiting quality plus none seem to have improved whether that's because they aren't good enough, don't care of are just coached poorly it's hard to tell.

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2 hours ago, TheMantis said:

The town doesn't deserve this club, never has. In the meantime Richie has to get a striker and a centre back in on loan, if he has any network at all. Thin margins yesterday against County, the difference between a team that's going well and a team sapped of all confidence. 

How the hell does the town not deserve the club 

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2 hours ago, TheMantis said:

The town doesn't deserve this club, never has.

Mantis... to indulge in a bit of devil's advocacy, there are also many people in the town - possibly the majority - who don't really care very much if Inverness has the club or not because they support other ones or basically aren't interested in football. It could be argued that the absolute case for having a club is no stronger than the sum total of the desire for that outcome. If attendances compared with the latter HL days are anything to go by, it could also be argued that the town appreciates what it now has a lot more than it did before. There is, of course, a pretty strong counter-argument to all of that in the national and international exposure that Caley Thistle has given Inverness as a community, but on the other hand I'm sure that wasn't all that high on the agenda of those who founded the club and who overwhelmingly did that for football purposes. ICT many would say - and other clubs as well - live or die on the size of the market for what it provides.

Edited by Charles Bannerman
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2 hours ago, CELTIC1CALEY3 said:

The club has the players to get results against Elgin and Partick but should we lose against Partick, that will be the key moment for action on the managerial front.

The only significant mistake our board has made in the last 15 years was being too loyal to Brewster and giving him too much time. There are parallels. We were on a bad run (but still had more points than we have now at the same stage) and then had a cup tie against a lower league side, which we won, and then had a relegation "6 pointer" against Hamilton. We waited until the inevitable defeat in that one before sacking him and bringing in Butcher in late January, who immediately brought about improved performances and results, but couldn't quite save us. Had we brought him in a game or two earlier, and let him be the manager to spend all the additional January budget, it's pretty likely that we'd have survived.

We now go into the January window with our chances of survival depending on shrewd and transformational signings being brought in by a failing manager whose summer signings were poor and who has a relatively sparse book of contacts.

Happy new year.

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36 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

The only significant mistake our board has made in the last 15 years was being too loyal to Brewster and giving him too much time. There are parallels. We were on a bad run (but still had more points than we have now at the same stage) and then had a cup tie against a lower league side, which we won, and then had a relegation "6 pointer" against Hamilton. We waited until the inevitable defeat in that one before sacking him and bringing in Butcher in late January, who immediately brought about improved performances and results, but couldn't quite save us. Had we brought him in a game or two earlier, and let him be the manager to spend all the additional January budget, it's pretty likely that we'd have survived.

We now go into the January window with our chances of survival depending on shrewd and transformational signings being brought in by a failing manager whose summer signings were poor and who has a relatively sparse book of contacts.

Happy new year.

What he said! Nail on head!

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I can't see the Board sacking Foran.  Having given him a massive vote of confidence by giving him a four year contract the Board would lose credibility by doing so.  Ending his contract so soon would also cost money which would inhibit the potential both for replacing him with someone with a track record and investing in new players.  It is not a question of sacking Foran, it is a question of how he can be supported at this early stage of his career so that he can begin to deliver on the potential they clearly see in him.

I agree with much of what has been said about the reasons for us struggling this season but at the end of the day, the margins between success and failure are very fine and had we got a bit more of the rub of the green at times this year, we could be sitting in the top six and not at the foot of the table.  Had that been the case, we'd all be saying what a good job Richie is doing.

But we are where we are.  We are not adrift at the bottom - far from it, but achieving safety does require a significant improvement in results.  In most seasons, averaging a point a game would see a team above the bottom 2.  We have 16 points from 21 games and therefore to get 38 points by the end of the season we need another 22 from just 17 more games.  That is 1.3 points per game.  St Johnstone in 5th spot are currently averaging 1.4 points per game, so that gives a measure of the standard we need to produce for the rest of season.  

I'm not going to comment now on what I think is wrong and how it might be improved, but what I would be interested in is what the Board's attitude to relegation is.  We are not a club that has the resources to buy our way out of relegation every year and whilst I am sure there will be some resources available, any players available who are better than we have now will cost a lot.  Foran's 4 year contract indicates a long term plan which perhaps accepts we may go down this season with time then to rebuild without over-committing financially.  

A club our size has absolutely no right to expect to be in the top flight year on year. Personally, I don't think relegation in itself would be a disaster.  What would be a disaster would be to spend silly money in order to avoid relegation and then get relegated in any case.  I do often wonder about the wisdom of saying that we need to strengthen.  What it does is to say to the current players that they are not considered good enough.  As I said earlier, the margins between success and failure are very fine and with a bit of good luck, a bit of improvement at the back and some improvement in tactical awareness I am convinced that we have a squad good enough to avoid the drop.  Despite our lowly position, we have seen some entertaining football this season, and I have seen enough to be convinced that whether or not we go down this year, a future with Richie Foran at the helm for the next few years will be a very exciting one.  

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4 hours ago, ferben1994 said:

How the hell does the town not deserve the club 

CB has already made some decent points, but let's see:

The club has spent half its existence in the top flight. It's had half a dozen visits to the national stadium in the past decade or so, a national cup win, another national final, and has beaten the ugly sisters multiple times even on their own midden. A top 3 finish and a nice wee trip to Bucharest (thank you very much).

Not to mention some of the best football I've seen in a lifetime, under Pele in the lower leagues (during that time, a few of us were happy to buy season tickets and travel up from Edinburgh and the Borders, and I'm speaking as somebody who has seen Cruyff, Law, Beckenbauer, Dalglish etc). Give Ayr Utd a 3 goal lead? No problem. Give Hearts a goal lead and 2 man advantage? No problem.

The championship is chock full of clubs who have greater resources than we have. Supporters of Falkirk, Dunfermline, St Mirren, Raith, not to mention the big two at the top, would give their right hand to have the success that we have been spoiled with, and yet in the fastest-growing city in Europe or whatever, fewer than 3k are willing to get off their arses/sofas to support a club which isn't much short of a miracle. 

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On Saturday, December 31, 2016 at 4:31 PM, TopSix said:

Fully behind Foran. Stagnation at board level. Media team needs a clear out too. Sack the board. 

I agree that the media side can often appear amateurish and could maybe do with refreshing but the board has served us well and steered a steady course for very many seasons keeping us financially sound whilst punching above our weight on the pitch.

Yes, this season has been disappointing to date but there is still time to turn things around and no club with our resources has a divine right to a permanent place in the top flight. 

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17 minutes ago, IBM said:

Good posts above from Doofers Dad and Mantis...och and IHE as well

A Happy New Year to all from me and to match jagsters Talisker

 

Caol Ila 12.JPG

Lovely stuff. See you all at Elgin.

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4 hours ago, TheMantis said:

The club has spent half its existence in the top flight. It's had half a dozen visits to the national stadium in the past decade or so, a national cup win, another national final, and has beaten the ugly sisters multiple times even on their own midden. A top 3 finish and a nice wee trip to Bucharest (thank you very much).

 

in the fastest-growing city in Europe or whatever, fewer than 3k are willing to get off their arses/sofas to support a club which isn't much short of a miracle. 

The first quoted passage pretty well summarises the case for what ICT has done, both for itself and for Inverness as well. As such, this also largely represents any case FOR any suggestion that whether or not Inverness "deserves" the club IS a relevant consideration. There's no doubt that ICT has played a major role in highlighting this city and that's before you take into account questions of direct economic impact, including the road opening up the Harbour.

In the second passage, is there perhaps a hint here of the proposition that football should be exempt from the usual laws of economics, marketing, supply and demand? The club is there, it's difficult to conceive of anyone who doesn't know that, its many achievements and its ongoing life are well publicly documented. This has resulted, over the last dozen years, in crowds which started at an average ballpark of 4000 but which are now descending towards 3000. That clearly demonstrates the current demand for the product on the basis of how it is marketed and the huge number of factors which will determine whether people feel it is worth the time and expense to attend.

I do think that one significant factor is that our quite sparsely populated and remote area may be finding it difficult to sustain two Premiership clubs in the longer term. I don't quite buy into the scenario that Ross County are doing better than ICT by drawing similar crowds from a less well populated area. (They may or may not be marketing their product better but that's a different issue.) I think Inverness is a big factor here in what are two largely overlapping catchment areas. To a lot of people who live in Inverness, including some Invernessians (if you see the distinction) there's not the same partisan divide as many perceive. I therefore look on this as two rival clubs competing for what is significantly a common market - which isn't big enough to sustain them both. However Ross County are to some extent insulated from some of the economic realities by a benefactor, although that statement shouldn't evoke any outbursts of self-righteousness from ICT fans. After all, ICT was more or less bust in 1999 and six years later was playing SPL football in an SPL compliant stadium, largely thanks to various interventions from Tulloch.

For me the emerging picture, in a market place where TV and other factors are a significant deterrent to attendance, is that the Inner Moray Firth is struggling to sustain two Premiership clubs in the longer term. Unfortunately, the first historical analogy which comes to mind is that of the USA winning the Cold War because its much greater spending power helped it to strangle the Soviet Union.

Edited by Charles Bannerman
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