I'm pretty despondent right now with regards ICT,  I think we are looking at the demise of our club as a top flight team, I really do.

We can't buy a win, we don't look like getting a win and I think the manager has blown his lot on trying to figure out how to get the best formation and how to get the best from the players, according to some sources Foran is pretty thrawn and does not seem to be able to take advice from the coaching team around him.

Some of the team set-ups have been questionable and tactics pretty naive, i'm sure the players can and surely want to perform better but the moral must be low as the pressure increases.  

As for the club, We have not moved on from our early days after promotion to the SPFL, Still the portacabin plonked outside, still dodging mud and puddles going to the shop/toilets and this to the sad stuff on the pitch and it's not much of an enjoyable matchday experience i'm afraid. Anyway, i'm off for a malt, and i'll be there on Saturday hoping and shouting the players on to maybe a win.

 

Sadly can't argue with any of that Caley100. Even the unlikely event of a Houdini effort to escape the drop will only paper over the cracks. Bottom line is we don't get enough through the gate - there was no bounce from winning the oldest football trophy on the planet. An annual basline loss of £250k ish can only be serviced by winning major trophies or selling talent. There's nothing left to improve the team or facilities. Community club here we come.

The time to start the blood-letting and taking stock will be when our fate is decided.  We still have it in our own hands to avoid relegation and yes I am only too aware that games are running out but things could change for the better quickly if we could get a early win in the remaining games and lets remember that all the teams next to us will be taking points of each other.

Lets use our energy to give the team all the positive backing we can and you never you the team may surprise you. 

 

At the end of January I did a breakdown for the Highland News when ICT had 16 points from 21 games or 0.76 per game. I had to guess what would be needed to gain 11th or 10th and, based on previous years, went for 33 and 36 points. I now wonder if these were slight underestimates.

To reach 33 from the full programme of 38 games was, in January, going to need 1.00 points per game across the 17 which remained, and 1.18 to reach 36. Since then, 10 of these 17 games have been played, yielding 9 points, or 0.90 per game. That's better than the previous 0.76 but still short of target. This therefore raises the two targets from 1.00/1.18 to 1.18/1.55.

So although the last 10 games have seen an improvement on the first 21, this hasn't been big enough so far to set a course for safety, hence the per game targets are now even higher. The arithmetic is tipping against and even more so with 33/36 points likely to be slight underestimates. However the whole business now boils down rather more to head to heads v Motherwell and Hamilton.

 

Edited April 5, 20179 yr by Charles Bannerman

11 hours ago, caley100 said:

I'm pretty despondent right now with regards ICT,  I think we are looking at the demise of our club as a top flight team, I really do.

We can't buy a win, we don't look like getting a win and I think the manager has blown his lot on trying to figure out how to get the best formation and how to get the best from the players, according to some sources Foran is pretty thrawn and does not seem to be able to take advice from the coaching team around him.

Some of the team set-ups have been questionable and tactics pretty naive, i'm sure the players can and surely want to perform better but the moral must be low as the pressure increases.  

As for the club, We have not moved on from our early days after promotion to the SPFL, Still the portacabin plonked outside, still dodging mud and puddles going to the shop/toilets and this to the sad stuff on the pitch and it's not much of an enjoyable matchday experience i'm afraid. Anyway, i'm off for a malt, and i'll be there on Saturday hoping and shouting the players on to maybe a win.

 

Unfortunately cannot disagree with anything that is said there. During our most successful period of cup runs, top six finishes, dabble in europe  nothing has changed on or off the park.  There has been little or no investment in the stadium since the 2 temporary stands went up, and we still cannot seem to manage our best marketable assets the players to our financial advantage. Maybe we need to be  less reliant on the income from Saturday games and explore other avenues of making money.

Biggest disappointment for me however  is all the empty seats every other  Saturday. Where have 500 -1000  fans gone ? We probably have a hardcore of no more than 2500 supporters which to be fair is not much more than when we used to play our 'home games' through in Aberdeen. 

Have to agree with forresjags and caley100. Hate to say it bus County's ground is better, tighter and has more atmosphere. I think we aimed to high with size of stands at both ends and whatever it is we have (or don't have) on west side of ground (come on, it ain't really a stadium).  

Hate being negative towards ICT, but County also seem to have better business acumen all round. Better layout with football academy next door as well. Proper training facilities and a set up that suits them and is realistic. 

For the fastest expanding town/city in Europe I have heard mentioned, our footballl team and it's executive staff have not been so pioneering. 

P45 for FORAN!!

Nah, County have Roy McGregor who literally throws money at the club, We have nobody, in fact we can't even give shares away!!   Sandy Catto's shares are still awaiting a bidder!  

There is something wrong at our club. 

The County model is totally unsustainable for a club of their size. They're a slightly bigger Gretna.

1 hour ago, caley100 said:

Nah, County have Roy McGregor who literally throws money at the club, We have nobody, in fact we can't even give shares away!!   Sandy Catto's shares are still awaiting a bidder!  

There is something wrong at our club. 

Totally agree but the problem is finding a capable board who know how to sort it. When we had good managers we did well but for one reason or another we either got rid of them or they left.

3 hours ago, caley100 said:

Nah, County have Roy McGregor who literally throws money at the club, We have nobody, in fact we can't even give shares away!!   Sandy Catto's shares are still awaiting a bidder!  

There is something wrong at our club. 

There is ! primarily no money 

The 'demise' may be more of a case or return to our natural position in the pecking order of Scottish football after years over-performing. We finished consistently well in the league, won a cup, lost a final and qualified for Europe - all things a club our size should never have done but unfortunately it never encouraged fan numbers to rise or investment into the club. We may have done even better bar the instability of management change and loss of some key players but we were perhaps lucky to find a bunch of hard working, skilled players out to prove themselves.

Recently our recruitment has been questionable - we have too many journeymen, passengers or guys who aren't good enough for this level yet we feel obligated to give them chances after several failures elsewhere - we lack the signing of young, determined and 'hungry' guys. The backroom staff also need questioned - have some been there too long and just out of ideas, then there's our assistant who personally I feel has to take more responsibility, since his arrival the team tactics have been so negative and lacking in ideas - with an inexperienced manager he should be offering more support.

Sadly we will go down, its a rut we are stuck in, whether we can return is a bigger concern.

Totally agree with the journeyman piece, it somehow worked for Butcher but we need to try and develop our own young players. Since we have been an SPL club you could probably count on one hand the amount of young players that have made an impact on the first team. Having next to no knowledge of the  development squad who will make the step up next year? Who is the next Ryan Christie ?     

25 minutes ago, forresjags said:

Totally agree with the journeyman piece, it somehow worked for Butcher but we need to try and develop our own young players. Since we have been an SPL club you could probably count on one hand the amount of young players that have made an impact on the first team. Having next to no knowledge of the  development squad who will make the step up next year? Who is the next Ryan Christie ?     

Liam Polworth 

And............ You could also have added G Shinnie and Nick Ross if you had wanted to, but the point remains we should be trying to bring through more young players and not stifle their progress by filling the first team squad with journeymen . We need to try and find a better balance. 

I'd much rather be a Inverness fan than a County fan. We have dominated them since we joined the national set up. First up through the leagues, we have the Scottish cup, we have been in Europe. Despite them lot throwing a lot more money at it. When planning the criteria for the spl was 10,000 seats so we had to plan for that. County benefited from us getting there first, highlighting the ridiculousness of the rule and it being changed.

46 minutes ago, IBM said:

Liam Polworth 

Not saying Liam hasn't improved over the years but for almost 3 or 4 seasons now people have been talking about him as a breakthrough youngster, he's still yet to establish himself as a first team mainstay and yet to find a position on the park he can dominate and call his own. While like everyone I want to see him succeed will he make it to the highest levels? Fortunately he also seems to have been given a lot more game time than some other youngsters who have been cast aside by the club after several managers who haven't even given substitute appearance even when we have struggled so badly.

3 hours ago, bdu98196 said:

The 'demise' may be more of a case or return to our natural position in the pecking order of Scottish football after years over-performing.

Not sure about this - look at Saturday's opponents. Not dissimilar size of town, same problem with local Old Firm numpties, difficulty in bringing in supporters. But despite a dodgy recent run they're safely in the top six.

Glass-half-empty - look at St Mirren, similar size of town, even bigger problem with local Old Firm numpties, and until recently they were in freefall.

Summing up - something gone awry. Agree with those who suggest the journeyman route worked for a while, but isn't working now. Need to develop more players and also rediscover our former trick of acquiring young Scottish players who had underachieved at their first clubs and bring them on (like, say, going way back, Robson and Wyness).

 

3 hours ago, bdu98196 said:

Not saying Liam hasn't improved over the years but for almost 3 or 4 seasons now people have been talking about him as a breakthrough youngster, he's still yet to establish himself as a first team mainstay and yet to find a position on the park he can dominate and call his own.

I thought he had a great 15/16 season. It's hard to imagine that at his age he would suddenly be a less good footballer than he was, which makes it likely that his lack of progress this season is down to a different manager's tactics, positioning, roles for him etc.

17 hours ago, caley100 said:

Nah, County have Roy McGregor who literally throws money at the club, We have nobody, in fact we can't even give shares away!!   Sandy Catto's shares are still awaiting a bidder!  

There is something wrong at our club. 

And once he calls it a day....prepare to watch County nosedive into obscurity

6 hours ago, bdu98196 said:

The 'demise' may be more of a case or return to our natural position in the pecking order of Scottish football after years over-performing.

This, i think, is likely closer to the truth

It would be good not to suggest that we have over performed.

That we have done far better than we should have done.

Our club seem to be pretty canny with the pennies, as opposed to wasting it needlessly, so comparing us to a club who has a higher gate but squanders the cash may not be a good comparison.

We haven't got going yet and I know that the players can do far better. As individuals they can be pretty good but together they can be fearsome opponents.

Belief wins matches.

 

 

Edited April 7, 20179 yr by 12th Man

4 minutes ago, 12th Man said:

 

Belief wins matches.

 

 

Comment made on last weekends Sportscene results. about how there was no real celebration of the equalising goal. That suggests there is a massive negative feeling flowing through the team

Sorry but we CURRENTLY have a squad of players capable of Top Six. If we had produced performances we would have attracted a few more in attendance figures BUT the team have simply have not been managed properly. Again Foran was an average player, played fer the shirt, gave everything, was popular BUT had no experience of coaching or managing and unfortunately has FAILED. The BOARD are to blame fer promoting him taking a massive risk, probably because he was cheap and THEY gave him a long term contract in the HOPE that he would succeed. THE BOARD ARE ULTIMATELY TO BLAME FER THIS. Unless we clear the Board OR get ONE voice in control - ONE who has football experience - and get in some experienced coach we will linger outside the top league fer ever.

Who cares about Ross feckin County - WE have only ourselves to Blame - and if we go down you watch our loyal troops going AWOL

There was a lot made of taking Danny Macdonald back. Can anyone tell me what he has done other than produce reports the club can't afford? He will be costing a lot of money,  money we could be spending elsewhere.

 

Edited April 8, 20179 yr by caleyboy

Our demise has been rapid, but the decline has been coming for a while. Without massive funding it's never going to be easy. With the crowds we get every home game it's impossible. As rig said about County, they are unsustainable. Unfortunately the same could be said about us. We simply can not afford the quality of player at Inverness as quality players come at a cost. That's why we get skimmed every year by Aberdeen. Money talks I'm afraid, don't give me this bullshit about players looking for a new challenge. I'll give them a new challenge, try earning money away from the game.

Anyway, there's still a way out of this mess for this season, a season where the board thought it was a great idea to give a rookie manager with nothing on his CV the unenviable task of keeping a sliding Inverness in the Premiership. Should we fail this season, I, like others, fear for our future. Or will it be a case of cutting our cloth to suit the division we are in. Obscurity beckons.

On a brighter note, the sun is out.