Inverness Caledonian Thistle manager John Hughes believes there is no reason why his club cannot win a cup or achieve European football next term. A convincing 4-0 win over Dundee clinched seventh place in the Premiership for Caley Thistle.

It was a fifth win in Inverness' last seven games.  "The standards I felt we've set were last year. I want to keep those standards, keep driving this club forward," said Hughes. The Highlanders have found form towards the end of a season in which they have struggled for consistency. Now Hughes wants to set his side lofty targets for next season."Don't tell me that a provincial club like Inverness can't go and win the Scottish Cup again, can't go and get third, get Europe," he told BBC Scotland. "I'll not accept that, that's the standards but we all need to be on board and keep driving it forward."

'Let's keep what we've got'

Hughes concedes there may be significant changes in personnel, but reiterated the importance of retaining key players. "I keep saying this, let's make sure we keep what we've got, guys like Miles Storey and Greg Tansey," said the manager. "Keep that solid foundation and lets go and add to it. "When it starts off again we have to make sure that we're bringing in or keeping players that we feel will go and take us back into the latter stages of cup competitions." It does seem fans' favourite David Raven will depart, with Hughes admitting he sees Josh Meekings as his preferred option at right-back. A number of players have been offered contracts to stay but the club awaits final decisions.

 

Edited May 14, 20169 yr by Tichy_Blacks_Back

What is narcissistic about Hughes' statement?

2 hours ago, Tichy_Blacks_Back said:

 

A light bulb moment

The thing is that Hughes is quite right with his comments. 

BUT - on previous history it is debatable whether he is the man to either retain or recruit the quality of player he is talking about. 

Also, had it not been for questionable tactics, we could have had one, or possibly two, cup finals this season. 

Is there an inkling that these comments are being made by an individual who remains convinced that he is spared of any responsibility, that he has been right all along, that others are to blame, that he has not taken on criticisms, that he is not going to change and has not learned any lessons from mistakes made ? Most things that I do not feel that he was at the beginning.

Keeping Tansey and Storey would be a major coup but is this not all PR babble. And the comment about Meekings is frankly astounding.

On 14 May 2016 at 6:27 PM, IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER said:

 Now Hughes wants to set his side lofty targets for next season."Don't tell me that a provincial club like Inverness can't go and win the Scottish Cup again, can't go and get third, get Europe," he told BBC Scotland. "I'll not accept that, that's the standards but we all need to be on board and keep driving it forward."

May be construed by some that this is another pop at the board or players not buying into his philophy or style of play or anything else he's currently at logger-heads about.

I'm afraid I don't share his optimism of a cup run/win and aiming for third place: Celtic; Aberdeen; Hearts and Rangers will all finish above us next season and he gives far much respect to Celtic and Rangers for this to change, he might as well be their PR consultant the way he goes on about them in the run up to games, it's embarrassing. This isn't even mentioning an upward Ross County who look like they're building slowly and a steady St Johnstone.

Season 2015/16 was the one to be aiming for this not 2016/17, not now with what is happening, a team should always aim to build on success but sadly we haven't and are in my opinion currently looking back at we we did rather than what we can do no matter what JH says, I genuinely believe he is a victim of his own belief's and is blinkered to the point he can't and won't think outside his own box.

It's an easy get out for JH, by distancing himself from the board and creating a divide, if his house of cards does all come crashing down all he will do is come out and say there was no vision moving forward that matched his own, that he didn't get the backing he wanted, that we didn't bring in the players he wanted etc etc.

If he had come out and said that after this season our aim should be to rebuild the squad, aim for top six and be competative for a full league season with a good strong cup run thrown in then he would get a lot more respect from me and would look realistic and in touch with the board and the fans, the above statement shows none of this in my eyes.

Oh and two months I did advocate giving him one more season as I believed he had earned it, not now I'm afraid, I genuinely don't know what to think now.

Well today I can see that there is only one way to deal with a narcissist - by mutual agreement of course.