Leaderboard

I don't understand why you are listing players who have left the club here. Players who we have out injured v those who are not I can understand the comparison. But what's the point in listing those who have left? Why not just put Dennis Wyness in there too?

Ok ok, I lured you in. Things right now are pretty bad. We've got a whole team out, are struggling to score, our defence is makeshift at best and we've got just 2 points, sitting joint bottom on account of less goals conceded. But look at the table. 2 wins and we'd be up in the top half and all would be seemingly rosey. We're not cut adrift and we've barely started. It would not be the first time we've had a bad start. Just be patient. See where we are in a week. Maybe we'll have a new striker. Players will come back from injury over the international break. Stop being so darn negative. https://youtu.be/EiUWAJswAho/ Hughes post match interview from around 4 minutes 10 "that's where we need the supporters. We need a hand" Get behind the team when they need us most. Don't be a fair weather fan.

No. Just No.

I don't see negativity just justified concern about a poor start to the season and a concerning recruitment policy. Expressing such concern in moderate terms while still attending matches and supporting the team certainly doesn't make one a 'happy clapper' but neither does it render those of us who have supported the team through thick and thin 'fair weather fans'.

Well no wonder you felt short changed. You left early. Silly!

There's a bit of chat on the Dundee thread about bus issues so to stop hijacking of it I've started this one. Firstly CJT regret having to raise the bus price. However out of 14 trips last season only 7 broke even. Our costs have risen again this season so unfortunately so has the fare. We cannot afford to subsidise buses at this level so they only choice we have is to increase the cost to travel. Even at £20 a head we have a fairly high seats sold bar to hit break even. If we stayed at £15 or even £17.50 very few buses would run anywhere near a break even level. As has been stated the bus takes you direct to the ground which should be figured into comparing our price with public transport. On looking today we found the public bus at £28 and the train at £36 return. We have also tried to help families with the introduction of an u14 fare. After you are 14 you can travel unaccompanied subject to conditions. We we are going to be conducting market research in the near future. We hope that will include a survey for members on this site. We will also be consulting bus users and also Caleyaway folks that travel to awaydays by alternate means. Please can as many people take part in this consultation as are able. We also welcome suggestions of improvements to our travel club. Please get in touch if you have any ideas. Thanks

Celtic is an obvious one based on the Delia signing policy - GMS, Armstrong, Ciftci, Allen - all players already used to Scottish football, ambitious, talented and ready to step up who can be bought for little in comparison to similar talent levels from elsewhere. If Ryan goes there he will get more game time than moving down south, possible European football and with Commons aging and becoming more injury prone a position Ryan can slot into that role.

I know this thread is about potential strikers however I see Darren McGregor has left Rangers by mutual consent. I know that it may seem unappealing but he seemed to be a stand out for Stuart McCall. It might be worth a shot to allow Ross Draper back in midfield.

Maybe "Absentees" is the wrong word then perhaps? Saying that we "have lost our entire first team" is distorting the situation in a very negative way I feel. We have lost 4 players who are very hard to replace, 5 if you include Ofere. However the club/management did what they could to retain these players. These players have gone. They are no longer concerned with ICT. Our current squad, injuries and weaknesses (ie: scoring goals, not conceding) are our concern. Again, players out injured v those who are not then I can see a point to your comparison. Otherwise I just feel it's negativity for the sake of negativity at a time when it's really not needed. Apologies if I am reading your post wrong.

...I fully agree that what money was spent was wasted in the wrong areas and I wasn't really pointing the finger at the board. However, JH obviously has an axe to grind because he has openly indicated in the press that there was no more cash and he needed a striker. Now it appears that more cash has been made available, but IMO it is too late in the transfer window. In short, I don't know what planning there was (if any), but we are now a team full of very similar midfielders, with little invention, no cover at all at the back and no strikeres. Of course the injury list hasn't helped, but this car-crash was imminent since January and nothing appears to have been put in place to mitigate!

Can we move this to General Nonsense ?

Ah, what might have been if only we had a scorer.....

and received no protection from a very poor referee.

Christie had the crap kicked out of him by Mackinnon who seems to masquerade as a footballer but is nothing more than a hatchet man.

Another really horrible game from an ICT perspective. Team looks bereft of confidence already and short on ideas on how to break teams down. If we had a striker like Mckay or even Ofere we could easily have had 3 goals but we don't and yet again we passed up some guilt edged chances to score. Lopez missed about three clear chances to score including one which looked to only be a few yards out and McGovern might even have saved it with his face. Despite these this our play overall was very poor. Lots of miss-hit passes in midfield (Polworth especially was guilty of this) and defensively we never looked comfortable. A mistake in midfield allowed Accies to break and after some slick passing Morris slipped past Draper and finished coolly under Fon Williams. At the time I thought Morris hosed Draper with a fantastic couple of touches. Turns out Draper barely look interested in making anything resembling a challenge and Morris simply ghosted past him. Still a good finish though. Accies seemed pretty defensive on the whole and were content to sit in and challenge us to break them down especially after going a goal up. As pretty much any ICT fan will tell you breaking through a well structured and disciplined team defending in numbers is something we simply cannot do and thereafter we really struggled. I can't really think of many clear cut chances we had in the second half.Lopez had a nice curling effort that was never troubling McGovern but I think that was as close as we came. Hamilton rounded things off with a great counter attacking goal. Tremarco took a throw in well inside the Hamilton half. A couple of seconds later and Crawford was leading a counter attack for Hamilton. Two passes later and Longridge was in the box rounding Fon Williams (who looked like he went down far too early) and sealing the win for Accies. It certainly wasn't smash and grab by any stretch of the imagination but a well organised disciplined performance from Accies who knew exactly who to negate us and it worked very well. Minor highlight was seeing Nade and Wedderburn battle each other for the ball and seeing Nade bounce off Wedderburn Other than that it was shite. Lots of concerns for ICT. Aside from the obvious poor form in front of goal and pretty much everywhere on the pitch now Tansey and Lopez are apparently on the injured list (Tansey came off in the second half due to a knock). Some strange tactics from Hughes as well. Playing Tansey as a right midfielder was bizarre as was subbing Lopez for Horner when Ferguson was on the bench. Surely when chasing a game you'd want to be playing a striker of sorts up there? Maybe he's still coming back to full fitness but we ended up with no striker on the pitch and a bunch of midfielders who seemed to get in each others way half the time. Away from the game full marks for the Hamilton fan who was collapsed outside the Innes spewing on himself. Some boi.

At last some sanity from amongst the wailing and gnashing of teeth! When will people realise we never sold Shinnie, Watkins or Ross? We never received any money for them. These players/legends chose not to stay a long time ago and ran their contracts down. I have said before on here and on P&B that we have no God given right to be anywhere near the heights achieved last year. Those successes may only happen once in a lifetime and are to be savoured not expected. Although when bringing this up with some of our delusional and downright daydreaming fans who believe that we should be pushing on and not resting on laurels I have been accused of being a happy clapper! I would rather live in the real world and enjoy my club playing at the highest position possible than unrealistically expect to roll over all other teams at will and dream of the day which unfortunately will never dawn of ICT being kings of the world. We are going through possibly one of our most challenging situations but people should realise we will probably be in this current situation more often than not. Don't particularly like it myself but that's reality.

There are two basic reasons why teams like Dundee United command much higher fees than we do for promising young players. Firstly, they have the confidence and foresight to put them on three or four year contracts and secondly, and just as crucially, they have developed a reputation for being shrewd negotiators who will not be sold short or taken advantage of. We, on the other hand, up until now, have a reputation of being naïve soft touches who will wet ourselves with excitement at the prospect of a few hundred thousand pounds for our best players. Whether he goes now or later, Ryan represents a great opportunity to change that perception. Such is the money in the English Premiership just now that any team that truly rates him even as a prospect for the future ought to be paying at least two and a half times the figure of £600,000 being bandied about. We have been a top tier club, with a one season blip, for a decade now. High time we started conducting ourselves like one when it comes to these sort of negotiations.

Almost every team in the SPL is dirty. I actually thought Motherwell were worse than Hamilton. The leniency of the referee was the problem on Saturday. Teams are normally only as dirty as they're allowed to be. A couple of yellows for wreckless challenges / hoofing the ball away early doors would have nipped it in the bud. PS If you think Hamilton are bad, just wait till we play Hearts. As for McKinnon, I think he tends to stick out more because... how can I put this... the boy has a face that you don't tend to forget. He looks like he's just wandered off the set of 'the scheme'. One thing I noticed about him last season, he literally looks on the verge of tears for most of the match. His whole game seems to be based on sledging the other team and gurning to the referee. You can picture him banging his head off the dressing room door before the game trying to psyche himself up. Maybe that's why he looks the way he does.

How bitter are you guys? Starting to sound like Dundee Utd fans. Bitter and delusional ​That's why he knocked back a move to England to sign for the Dons hhhmmmm ​Uncomfortable wearing the kit of the team his full family support (as he said 3 times in the video conference) hhhhmmmm ​This actually made me shake my head in disbelief. Jealous of a ****** wee club followed by about 2,000 fans? Oh dear oh dear ​Agreed 100% We all lose players to other clubs. However, no players are bigger than the club we love. ​As it should be. The guy tried his heart out for you guys. During his press conference he said that he loved the 7 years at Caley and will always be grateful to you for them. ​Agree 100% ​I have to be honest, this is the most cringe-worthy chant by any opposition team. I do have to say though. I cheered you guys for the cup. It was great to see such a young club achieve such a feat. Total Roy of the Rovers stuff. I have never had a problem with you and always like to see you do well. I hope this thread was just the fall out of losing your best player. You have a fantastic record of unearthing gems ... I am 100% convinced you will do so again. The best of luck in Europe (I hope you guys, St. Johnstone and the Dons show that Scottish football is about far more than the Bigot Brothers) and in the League (apart from against us obviously).