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I think another argument that can be put to bed tonight is that our recent poor form was down to tiredness, the lads certainly didn't look tired tonight

Leo Strauss was a famous political philosopher who taught at the University of Chicago. In the 1950s he came up with his famous term 'reductio ad hilterum', which means that if you try to argue against an opponent by comparing their viewpoint to that of Hitler or the Nazis, you've lost the argument. I think we should introduce a similar rule when it comes to football management and tactics called 'reductio ad Guardiola' or 'reductio ad Barca'. Barcelona can play the way they do because they have the best players in the world playing for them. If we had midfielders as good as Xavi and Iniesta then emphasising possession, keeping the ball and moving it would be a great tactic. We don't have Xavi and Iniesta. Barcelona's tactics aren't a valid comparison for most other clubs in the world and they certainly aren't for a club in the SPL. It's nonsense and painful to read the manager of our club saying things like that. It reminds me of the rubbish Alex Smith used to come out with when he was managing County - "I like small forwards, we play the right way, pass and move". All teh while sucking the life out of the club and achieving nothing. When it comes to being educated, when John Hughes took over this side he'd never managed a team as good as us. His Falkirk sides were never as good as we were in the first part of this season, neither were his Hibs side really. His Hartlepool team were relegated and his Livingston side bimbled away in the lower leagues. He is the one who needs to be educated by what our side achieved at the start of the season.

Personally I thought we were back to our usual fast paced, direct style of play tonight rather than the slower, short passing game that was on show in recent fixtures. Maybe Hughes was trolling us all this week to sucker Adams in?

You tell them Charlie boy, pathetic comments by Adams

Why only six subs ? Surely if there's a space on the bench that's an opportunity for a youngster to sample the big match experience even if there's no intention of bringing him on.

Well done Robbo. "It's not about the players, it's about educating yourself about the club and what makes the players tick"

In all honesty, I don't think any of the players have been poor as such. The current style of play that has been asked from them needs time for them to adapt to and understand which in time might work or might not who knows. What I am disappointed in with Yogi's tactics is that you have Nick Ross who has been a right good talent under Terry Butcher on the wing and Yogi's put James Vincent wide left where you can see he is uncomfortable with it. Marley Watkins being on the bench to me is a good idea. If you recall to the game over in Dingwall last Feburary, we were cruising 2-0 and needed a bit of a spark and up steps Marley Watkins to the scene and we are 3-0 up. So in that respect, Watkins could be used as an impact sub when the opposition is tiring, same could be said for Danny Williams. Regardless for Ryan Christie being a local lad and stuff, he MUST be a regular starter playing behind Mckay. The kid's passing is tremendous and looking back to the Motherwell game, he was the only guy that was looking to play attack passing and getting the ball forward. I have said in the one of the match day threads that Graeme Shinnie should be played wide left purely because he has a great left peg on him and while Yogi wants us to play like "Barca" I'd love to see Graeme play like Gareth Bale and I think he could go places if he did that. We have a great left back in Carl Tremarco and you could see on Tuesday night that Carl and Graeme link up very well but Yogi's style of play is surrendering too much space on the wings maybe it won't work but if it did, I wouldn't be surprised to see Mckay scoring regularly again. So my team for the rest of the season:- Brill/Esson Raven Warren Meekings Tremarco Draper Tansey Ross/Doran Christie Shinnie Mckay

Also, emphasising possession over all else, which is what Hughes does, is out of date and negative. Keeping hold of the ball, no matter what, is negative - you are putting preventing the opposition scoring at the heart of your game, if they don't have the ball they can't score. The issue is that not being Barcelona we aren't good enough to keep the ball, so put ourselves under pressure and end up knocking it long and/or giving away stupid goals by putting ourselves under pressure. Emphasising pressure over position on the pitch also means that our attacking players don't get the ball near the opposition goals - look how isolated Mckay is most games now. It's no surprise that he's hardly scored since the turn of the year. Pressing high up the pitch, putting pressure on opponents and getting the ball into dangerous areas had us as one of the best teams in Scotland, with a deadly striker and some excellent attacking performances. Now we are anything but that, we are soft touches. The team selections and the quote that we are going to 'play down the middle' is just baffling. There is no part of the pitch that is better to play through, you play to your strengths. We have excellent players who can attack from wide areas - Nick Ross, Marley Watkins, Aaron Doran. In the last few games at least two of those have been left on the bench while we string central midfielders across the park, who are told to keep the ball with each other at all costs, so we get pushed back, we turn backwards, we hit it long and lose the ball without threatening.

Or if your glass half empty, everyone's taken something from us!

It's not called that now, remember they sold out

Some hilarious diving from County tonight, that Cikos clown actually screams as he goes down, what a rocket. Good performances all round. Raven man of the match for me, great shift down the right flank. Tremarco likewise, he was first to every ball and full of running. Can't fault the gaffer tonight. Two wins on the bounce at Victoria Park is no mean feat.

There's only one 10CC, you tell that whinging barsteward. I was willing that interviewer to say "well, Derek, the pictures show that Shinnie actually played the ball. Why don't you just shut your cakehole?" As for Kiss, what a waste of space. Trying to get Shinnie booked after a fairly innocuous foul in midfield.

Glad to see Aaron back ,what a cracking goal had my doubts ahead of tonights game , Well done ICT for proving me wrong :ictscarf:

Well done boys. peach of a goal by Doran. Adams magnanimous in defeat as always. Hughes increasingly educated.

That was some seethe even by DA's standards. Very close to bringing the game into disrepute in my view.

Someone please play the interview with Adams back to him now the game is over .... 4 goals Deek? really?

Justice

A winger scores and we work their keeper more in 45 mins than in the last 5 games of 'total football'. He'd better not change next week!

Never a red especially when it's against one of them and especially when they're named after a dodgy face painted 70s stadium glam band

He was given the award before he hired Hughes and was praised by one and all on here. It is my opinion that his stewardship was not tested until Butcher left, he claimed the recruitment process was rigorous and left no stone unturned, leading to a man who was sacked by 3 other chairmen being the ideal candidate for a job running the 2nd best team in Scotland.. Thus he failed a major footballing test we would expect the SPFL Chairman of the Year to pass, as other details about the recruitment process have come to light it would appear they were flimsy in the extreme. What other full time team in Scotland would hire a manager that didnt really have an idea who his assistant/staff would be? Why was it footballing giants such as Hamilton Accies (and no doubt others that never made it into the media) turned down Hughes when he applied for the job there? If the decision was purely financial then fine, I can live with that, at least come out and say as much.

Confused.com I applied to become Andy Murrays new coach, I know hes been doing fine of late but advised him to drop the power serves and to continually chip and charge. With a bit of educating and bit of learning he can be as good as Tim Henman.

It is quite Messi isnt it on the upside, it does mean we will get the stripes back next year and our sponsor is now sorted !!! ..... sneak peek at our new kit, just the badge to change

Are we allowed to bring in Iniesta and Messi?

Have you tried turning it off and on again?...

Teams that can press high up the pitch and break quickly well are hard to find, and need a coach who believes in that system. We have just the former it seems. Why change a whole team's style and philosophy when they were 2nd in the league. The squad wasn't designed to do that, it seems like buying a football to then play table tennis with. That being said, maybe the players are "loving it" but the bigger question is can they do it? Hughes obviously thinks so, as I don't think the squad will be changed. So, now we know what the hymn sheet says, let's see how well JH conducts this choir of burly workhorses. That's the one and only thing JH and the board will now be judged on.

Without even checking, the last 4 finals were in order... Dortmund v Bayern Munich Chelsea v Bayern Munich Barca v Man United Inter v Bayern Munich

It won;t happen yet, not until every excuse has been exhausted. edit- which is a failure of the pally nature of all local relationships between media, sponsors and anyone else who needs to stay in regular contact with the club. I guess its up to the SPFL Chairman of the Year and others with a financial stake/take from the club to shun people they don't see eye to eye with, couldnt blame them for it really, you cant critisise them from within.

BBC Headline - "Inverness: John Hughes has Barcelona vision for Caley Thistle" I think the beeb have just mis-quoted yogi on all that passing stuff and he means the strips.

How about signing up more explayers / exmanagers children in the youth teams as it seems to be working well

To be fair to Sergi, he was up against the best County manager in their history. It's been all clowns since then.

Bannerman hat on "Width of pitch is an example of a continuous variable (It needs to be measured). The pitches are the same width measured to 2 significant figures, i.e. the nearest metre in this case. No. of goals is an example of a discrete variable - it can be counted (unless you are talking about goals scored by ICT, which do not require to be counted)." Bannerman hat off

Maybe we should go John barnes 4-2-2-2? ha ha! What I want is the ability to mix it up. Ok Hughes said Doran may be available, but Foran is out for about 4 weeks, in that now infamous "educate" post match interview so - Brill - - Raven - Meekings - Warren - Shinnie - - Draper - Polworth - - Watkins - Christie - Ross - -Mckay- Christie has earned his start. And I think Polworth has a fair shout too, though that could be harsh on Tansey so either/or. Really wanna see Ross starting on the left side of the midfield 3 as for me he has the ability to link up with the central players and Shinnie down the left. Give Christie a free role. let him play. Let him support Mckay as a 2nd striker/trequartista/number 10 type. If Doran is available I'd see him come off the bench. With Williams and Vincent there we'd have the options to change it up. Even bring on Tremarco and push Shinnie up wide left. This management malarky's easy eh!

Barcelona, Chelsea, AC Milan.... Though all utilised their full backs to good effect. While individual errors can be attributed to players, what doesn't help is a style of play that attracts pressure. Brill's kicking may not be great, but when he gets the ball and an opposing forward at pretty much the same time, things are going to go wrong. If I can see that insisting we play in a particular way is leading to unfortunate consequences, is it too much to expect our management team, who should know what they are doing, to notice and act accordingly? Hughes said himself it'd down to individual decision making after that, to me that sounds like he's saying use common sense when passing back to the keeper. Personally I am a little disappointed with Hughes comment re his preferences to Butchers. As opposed to out and out focus on wing play, or trying to go through the middle we should be looking to utilise both forms of play where the opportunity presents itself, ie space on the wings - play it wide, get a cross in. Gap through the middle, exploit it. Variation, change, opportunistic approaches. I'm happy with the idea of trying to evolve a team, but if he's just wanting to whole heartedly change us to one style I'm of the thinking it wont work.. Now previously I would be attributed to the "happy clapper" camp. I'm not a pessimist. I still feel that Hughes needs time. His results from the start of the year on are quite comparable to ours under Butcher in the same period last term, and a decent final flourish and they'd be better. They are also considerably better than Butchers at Hibs. It's not like he's taken our winning mentality with him. Add to that the mitigating circumstances of 13 games in 40 odd days and to me the players are reaching burn out. In summary, Hughes needs to stick to his word about not changing what was a winning formula. Perhaps he's use the excuse of the 5-0 loss at Celtic as an excuse to change the system, despite previously embarking on a completely unbeaten February. But this team was built around good counter attacking play. We were not exactly a long ball team either. They played good "football" and played at a high tempo, as well as being able to play with variation. If the long ball option was on, it would be used. There is no shame in that. I have no problem with him wanting to develop and educate players in better football techniques but he can't make us change overnight. It does not work.

Were you actually at the game last night and if so, were you in the dugout? The players who you obviously feel are letting the club down are the players who had the team up in 2nd place before the new manager came in. They are the same players who gave their all yesterday in trying to play to a system which they know is not going to work and who were obviously very frustrated about it. All the players have their good days and their bad days but yesterday you certainly could not fault them for lack of effort. It was a bit like a new conductor telling the string section of an orchestra to play the wind instruments. They can huff and puff all they want but it won't sound good and it won't be their fault.

Can you include yourself if youve achieved greatness on Football manager?

Firstly, last night was a dreadful game from both isdes and Motherwell were no better than us, what that says about Scottish football god only knows. I will come to the style of play in a minute but yet again, our defence has gifted two goals, take away those and probably neither side had any shots of note in the box. While much of the critiscm on selection and tactics is rightly down to Hughes, the players do have to shoulder some of the responsibilty for this as well. They do not have to do everything the manager says when on the pitch and an example last night was Gary Warren especially dropping deep to get the ball fromm Esson, pass it across the park a few times then it goes back to Esson to hoof it up the park. That may be the managers tactics but surely the players can make their own decisions on the field. We were pretty poor defensively last night and have been generally for the past few weeks and there i a lack of form being shown by our defence just now. This may be down to tiredness with the number of games in a short space of time as, by and large, we have played the same team in these games. In short, we lack a leader on the park to sort things out as we do not appear to have one off the park at the moment. I have been, what may have been described as a "happy clapper" but I have to admit my patience snapped last night when it was obvious we were playing far too narrow. Any success we did get was when the full backs did get wide and get some decent balls into the box. The other thing that is obvious is the lack of pace in midfield especially when we are breaking. Very few players seem to bust a got to get forwward, whether that is down to tiredness again, I do not know but is very noticeable. The team as ever will get my support but I do not believe Hughes is stupid enough not to hear the alarm bells ringing about what is happening. The test will be whether he reacts for the rest of the season but if he wants to win those fans over, who didn't want him in the first place, then he has a big job on his hands. A win at Dingwall would be a start as was it only a few weeks ago, everyone was raving about our performance there.

Just in from the game and to be perfectly honest it was not good enough. Motherwell were not even that good tonight but again it's the same story where we leave too much space in the park and we conceded a goal. I really can't get my head around why Yogi said yesterday that the game was a 100% must win game but then chose to play 5 defenders with 5 attacking midfielders on the bench? Talk about playing for a draw! With this tactic I am finding the most frustrating thing is that we find some good space on the wings but yet we pass it back to the back four and keeper - fecks that all about? Carl Tremarco and credit to him I could see him buggering the system and got in some decent crosses from the left and if I was the manager of ICT he would be playing at left back regularly and with Graeme Shinnie pushing up in to the left wing. Gareth Bale started off as a left back and got played as a left winger and look at him now being bought for £100m playing for Real Madrid. Graeme Shinnie has a fantastic left peg on him and could reach a high level as an attacking winger. I found at times that him and Tremarco linked up so well on the wing but again it was the same crap by playing it too narrow and not getting the best out of the players we have. I didn't understand why Ryan Esson was in goals tonight but fair play to him I don't think he really had that bad of a game. It was the back four leaving too much space for Motherwell to utilise and pretty much did half the work for Motherwell. Their second goal, they couldn't have had an easier goal if they tried. Why did Yogi take off David Raven? In all honesty I didn't think he should have been taken off because he had a reasonable game and it left us without a right back and we played Greg Tansey at RB? The only positivity I can take from tonight was Ryan Christie's goal really deserving of it and what a strike it was! He adds so much energy and attacking play to our team, He MUST start on Friday. Just looking at the stats, we've conceded 18 goals in the last 9 games and we have only won 1 game in the last 9 - Not good enough.

It's actually 2363, plus three fit and available wingers.

Delighted it was Christie who got the goal. First of many, I hope. Now come on ICT!

Has to be back to the red and blue stripes. Absolutely detest our current Rangers kit. I cant stand the fact we had an identity with our strip and we chose to look like many other teams, boring and bland, we need our identity back please

I think we have to go back to the blue and red stripes. The best tops we have had IMHO

Did we not try and sign Dean Shiels years ago? I'm sure it was when Charlie Christie was manager and he was at Hibs.