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The boy is a Celtic fan, he always gave his all for ICT and contributed greatly to our success last season and am sure will continue to give 100 % until he leaves. His sale has put some much needed cash in our coffers. Give the lad a break.....

I'm sure he is very excited by this move but his reported comments really do illustrate the problems we face. We keep saying that one of the major factors in keeping gates down are the number of people who are local born and bred but who support the OF in preference to their local team. One can understand folk who developed an allegiance years ago before ICT existed, but youngsters like Ryan have grown up knowing nothing other than their local team being in the Scottish League system. In Ryan's case it is much worse. His Dad played for ICT, managed ICT and still works for ICT. Ryan himself has come up through the junior ranks of ICT and it is ICT, right from the Chairman down to everyone else in the club, who has supported him, helped him and nurtured him in becoming the player he is today. If anyone should be an ICT fan through and through it is Ryan Christie. If he isn't first and foremost an ICT fan, then can we really complain at anyone else for not being one? Maybe I am being a little unfair on the lad. He is, after all, paid to play football and not to communicate and the media will encourage a Celtic fan story line. But his sentiments as reported does the club no favours at all. Hopefully some more considered comments will be reported and in future Ryan will declare to the world that whilst delighted to be a Celtic player, he is first and foremost a fan of the club that has made him what he is - Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

I know we are all disappointed that Ryan has been sold and that we didn't get more for him but that does not mean that Celtic have done anything wrong in the way they have gone about their business. You may think Celtic paid too little for him but where were the better offers? Why on earth should Celtic pay more for a player than the selling club is prepared to accept? Our Board were under no obligation to accept any offer so if you are unhappy about the sale have a pop at the Board for accepting the offer and for not having Ryan on a longer contract, or have a pop at Ryan himself if he was unwilling to move anywhere other than Celtic. Exactly what aspect of the deal (as much as we know of it) shows unfairness and a lack of respect on Celtic's part? We may wish the league to be more even but it is what is and Celtic, quite rightly, will look after their own interests first and foremost. They know they are going to win the league at a canter and their focus is on Europe. But bear in mind that if Celtic are successful in Europe then we all benefit. Had Celtic reached the group stages of the Champions league then there would have been a considerable payment to all the SPL clubs. Let us hope that next season Ryan's contribution can help Celtic reach the Group stage and benefit comes to us and the rest of our league as a result.

Let's give him a chance eh?

Why is he going to claim to be an ICT fan when he is clearly a Celtic one, he never tried to hide that just look at his twitter feed. i am sure he has great affection for ICT and always will, he has shown nothing but respect for ICT and I am sure he will continue to give his best while here. Good luck Ryan its been a pleasure watching your development.

The Wales team bus. 'Hi, Gareth, how are things going at Real?' 'Not bad, boyo, but looking for a move. What's this Inverness like?' 'Oh, it's not too bad, look you.' 'Right, I'll have a word with my agent...' We can always dream.

We were always going to have a hangover from the club's most successful season in our history but there has been a huge turnover in players so after D-Day this is our lot - 2014/15 Losses Billy Mckay - £150k (January) - Striker Graeme Shinnie - PCA - Left Back Edward Ofere - Free transfer - Striker Nick Ross - PCA - Versatile Midfielder Marley Watkins - PCA - Forward/Winger Tarmo Kink - Free transfer - Forward/Winger Ryan Christie - £600k (best estimate) - Versatile Midfielder/Forward Other losses earlier in the season Pepper, Greenhalgh & Sekajja (a few others but not first team players) 2015/16 Gains Dani Lopez (free transfer from from La Roda) - Striker Jordan Roberts (free transfer from Aldershot) - Versatile Midfielder Nathaniel Wedderburn (free transfer from Cowdenbeath) - Holding Midfielder Owain Fon Williams (free transfer from Tranmere) - Goalkeeper Iain Vigurs (free transfer from Inverurie Locos) - Versatile Midfielder Andrea Mbuyi-Mutombo (free transfer from ÉFC Fréjus Saint-Raphaël) - Forward/Winger Tobi Sho-Silva (6 month loan from Charlton) - Midfield/Forward Miles Storey (6 month loan from Swindon) - Striker Ryan Christie (Season loan with option to recall) - Versatile Midfielder/Forward Difficult to judge positions as a lot of the new guys have still to pull on a shirt but from the above we are actually up on numbers from last year with an additional keeper and holding midfielder. For me the main difference is the quality and experience we have lost but you could argue, from what we have seen so far, Vigurs and Fon Williams would have competed for a position in last years squad. From what I've seen and read Mutombo, Wedderburn and Roberts (in friendlies) have all shown glimpses of quality. I still think that Lopez could be a good signing for us but it is fair to say that he has not hit the ground running. It's not new for us to pick players out of obscurity in the English lower leagues and let them make a name for themselves with ICT but it does annoy me that for the money that was earned last year we have failed to sign anyone with a decent record or any real experience at this level. It is not as if we didn't know this was coming so where were the contingency plans? Do we have scouts actively making enquiries to present an affordable list of candidates to Yogi and if so, was this the best that could be achieved with funding available? Or have the board refused to make funds available? At the same time if the board had over-reacted and made a panic buy last night which didn't work out then they would be under more scrutiny and out of pocket. I hope that the board use the next 6 months wisely because there is now no excuse for lack of investment and with only 5 players signed to 2017, I expect a lot of new contracts to be handed out in the coming months and a signing in January to get the fans excited. I think the majority fans are grateful and take a lot of pride that we do things the 'right way' by not over spending beyond our means but the time has come to loosen the purse-strings just a bit. In the meantime hopefully injuries ease up and the new signings hit the ground running because this is our lot. Onwards and upwards.

Some pretty harsh criticism of Christie here. The subtext of his comments are that he's delighted to sign for Celtic. Given that he was giving those comments to the Celtic website it's not surprising that he is going to be overwhelmingly positive about the move. If he was to be asked by the Inverness Courier about the move I've no doubt he'd have plenty of good stuff to say about Inverness and ICT. He'll tailor his answers per his audience and the question asked.

I had mixed feelings on this transfer when Stokes was being mentioned as part of the deal was mentioned, however without Stokes, and considering the poor calibre of playing being loaned in on the same day, I'm really disappointed with the whole situation. It was always going to be impossible for us to replace the quality players we have lost, but are recruitment policy of late deserves the criticism it has been receiving. More or less every team in the SPL has been signing better quality players than we have. We're a small club but we should be able to bring in players who have proven themselves at some level, even if not in the SPL. The loanee's we have brought in on the last day seem to be panic transfers. While I'd love for them to prove me wrong it's highly unlikely that they are going to go from under 21 football to being prolific in the SPL before their loan deals run out. Another frustrating part of this deal is that it's almost as if Hughes was trying to force the issue with his comments in the press. He said that a deal by which Ryan is loaned back would suitable for us, and what do you know, a week or two later exactly that happens. I wonder, if Hughes hadn't made those comments, if Celtic would have come in with a bid. If Ryan Christie had been playing for say, Dundee United, as he was for us this and last season, he would have been sold for over a million. Say what you want, based not only on his potential but his currently ability, Ryan Christie is worth more than double what we sold him for. I seriously hope there's some incentive clauses in the transfer deal.

And it is Hi ho Tobi Silva everywhere we go

What are you on about. The subtext is pretty obvious. He's delighted to sign for the club he supports and who his father before did also. He's every right to be ecstatic about it. And he's showing no disrespect in doing so. Especially when he later states he's got to get his head down and hit the targets with us that have been set. That's showing an immense amount of professionalism and respect for one so young. Really hope that the move works out for him and he goes on to play for Scotland. I'd be more gutted to see him stagnate on the bench there. And unless something drastic happens he'd always be welcome back at The TCS.

Sometimes on here there's a bit of Weegiephobia related to the Old Firm. Fact is the dreaded twosome are probably the most popular teams in Inverness (as they are in Kilmarnock, Perth, Motherwell, Falkirk and, indeed, Kirkintilloch). And so even players, whose fathers are ex-players, and who are born-and-bred locals, are lifetime Cellick or Sevco supporters. Their market penetration, if that's what it is, is infuriating and difficult to counter. And bad for Scottish football, since many who identify with them never go to a fitba match, anywhere. This isn't going anywhere. It's something I find distressing about Scotland and its fitba. If you have any solutions, glad to hear there.

My goodness - a "dream come true"; "buzzing"; "incredible feeling"; "over the moon and just desperate to get it finished". Could Christie have been any more disrespectful to Caley? No wonder we struggle for fans. Why support a club that its own players don't.

First few clips I watched looked like they were from a Sunday amateur game in the local park.

Tobi or not Tobi

Sucking up to the fans of your new club is just part of the job. Everyone on here used to love it when Butcher talked up Inverness in the media. Hopefully Ryan keeps his head down and goes on to fulfil his potential on the big stage. Then again, a 20 year old, living in Glasgow, on £7k a week, with new found fame - it's easy to see how so many talented youngsters careers have gone off the rails at the Old Firm.

I think you're subtext is a bit dramatic. Going by your thinking, only a fan can play for their team...... Hmmm that would be interesting. Good on Ryan, he's done well, good luck in the future & I hope he gets some game time with Celtic.

If Le Rangers were paying him £7,000 per week, I'm sure he would be saying more or less the same.

Just some general observations on this sorry saga. The transfer windows do nothing but harm to football, especially for smaller selling clubs. The old system, while not perfect did not wreak as much havoc as this in my opinion. Celtic, although being cynical on this, have done nothing wrong and exploited the situation to their best advantage. Perhaps the board may have been able to get more money but as no other concrete bids at this time, could they risk losing Christie for nothing in January or at a reduced fee. For those suggesting we should have held out for nearer a million, or considerably more than 500k, it has to be remembered Christie, at this stage in his career, is an exciting prospect, no more. He is still learning his craft and plays in fits and starts for us. I do think this may not be the best move for him nor would joining an English Premier league club (assuming any wanted him). Only time will tell but he does need to play more games at this level. I am however starting to have some concerns about the board. I do not think they are hard enough or ambitious enough to really drive the club forward. They need to be more dynamic/proactive and this should not be taken as being negative or not recognising their efforts we need more of a figurehead for the club in the boardroom.

We ARE only a small club. A nationally renowned club but with a regular fan base of around 2500 and a small budget we are undoubtedly a small club. That is quite simply a matter of fact. *losing As for the shirts, it's not a matter of when the shirts are available but that the fans buy them when they are. If you had the money to buy one in June why not keep it aside? Though I do feel a pre order system at least would help. We are now an established SPFL club and Scottish Cup Winners.. as for attendances we are only ever going to increase the gates by showing ambition and by being a progressive club. Apart from the big boys our attendances are competitive with others in the division. I would like to see our net spend for this year (in terms of new contracts) compared to last and with others in the division because I am sure we are well behind the rest of them. No, its not a matter of simply keeping money aside for strips. When are you more likely to buy a new strip? a) when you have just won the Scottish Cup and are competing in Europe with the hope and expectancy of the new season or b) when we are no longer in Europe, memories of the Scottish Cup win are fading* and we are 6 games in without a win and scored only 4 goals and worse yet - County are flying. That's for existing fans. What about new fans that we could have attracted after the Scottish Cup Win, are they still likely to keep money aside for a new top? It's supply and demand. We had the demand and still have no supply. Also Cabrini? The fans are paying the same price for football tops that are being made by an inferior brand ... Imagine a new fan or a fan that is being swayed towards ICT, went to the final celebrated with the rest of us. Loved it! ICT release 2 new nice as **** adidas tops (just for 1 season) ... guaranteed sales. Fans delighted walking about wearing these tops, others see them and also want one.. sales spike and ICT has not only made a profit on purchases but also have recruited a new set of fans. An adidas ICT top is more of a pipe dream but even stay with Errea for one more season and just make sure that we have tops available for any potential new fans! If making a new deal with Cabrini ... insist that we have our new strips before now... better yet get ahead of the game and strike a deal before last season had ended!! Show a bit of organisation .... do your job. * to be fair will take a long time before I forget that day Admittedly not having strips well into the new season is a bit of a joke. (Though I only ever get mine for Xmas anyway. Hopefully be in the shops by then). The club is noted for being slow on it though so perhaps we need to learn to expect it, whilst venting our annoyance at the poor preparation. Whether we are an established SPFL team or not, doesn't directly impact on the size of our club and in comparison to others ICT are relative minnows. Probably only similar to St Johnstone and Ross County in this league. Hamilton perhaps also. But that makes our success all the more satisfying to me. The fact our resources are limited but we use them so well.

That's very harsh! We've not had a good start and things are not looking particularly rosy either but I think we all know we want to keep Yogi here. (obviously not the folk who are desperate for the day they can say "I told you so - never wanted him in the first place" but we'll ignore them)

On the topic of the development squad. I spotted this on the SFA's list of deadline day transfers: 'Kane John Stuart Hull | Inverness Caledonian Thistle to Strathspey Thistle | Development Loan'

"" thanks terry for the players that made me look like manager of the year"" Funny, and certainly there is a lot of truth to it, but I'd say Hughes and Latapy got that extra mile out of them. Sometimes, that's the difference.

This one's been less of a window, more of a trapdoor.....

Theres a fair bit of money recieved by the club in the last 12 months with not very much it seems been re-invested in threadbare squad. Im not blamin the manager as am pretty sure he will be quietly just as unhappy as most fans are that he's not been backed by the board This is the worst squad ever now after injuries and at the moment every match day team fills me with fear Fans turning on each other ceartinly is not the way ahead when for me its Kenny Cameron and his band of merry moneymen that are the real issue, to put it bluntly wheres all the money gone mr Chairman?? I certainly wouldn't go as far as saying this is the worst squad ever...we still have a fair bit of last seasons squad! Yes some left and others are injured long term but let's not forget that the players left also played a big part in achieving way we did last year. if any of our players were to read this forum they'd be pretty disappointed with what's said about some of them so, instead of being negative about the squad, let's get right behind each and every one of them and try to give them as much confidence as possible to get our season going!

I take my ICT scarf to Palace anyway....whereas I wore a vintage red n blue stripe Palace shirt to Hampden for the final!

Och, it's not the way I would have written any of this - but in a sense a lot of this is whip-lash from winning the cup. Shinnie was away before that, of course - but arguably his desire to leave on a high was the catalyst for such great performances. Marley Watkin's cup heroics played a part in him attracting a move - doing it in the big games is always going to earn you attention. I think it's understandable that there is a hangover in terms of performance and motivation after winning almost the biggest prize that the club is likely to be in the running for in the forseeable future - and just winning silverware is more than a lot of the players in that squad would have ever anticipated doing in the game. Russell Latapy might have seen it as a sign that he needed to push out and try management, and for both Nick Ross and Ryan Christie, it was a watershed moment. Hughes has undoubtably played a shorter game in terms of squad management than previously was his style at Falkirk and Hibs - and that's left us in a bit of a mess this season. Would I trade comfortable mid-table anonymity this season for the Cup? Would you?

The whole thing is pretty depressing after the highs of last season. Celtic have been extremely cynical in waiting until the last day of the transfer window, knowing we couldn't refuse a half-decent offer, which is all it is, especially considering the fees other young Scottish players have gone for. Totally agree that we should have played hardball, even if it meant taking a big risk. At the very least we should have insisted on the loan back to be the whole season. I also hope, but probably in vain, that we insisted on appearance bonuses to up the fee, and a big percentage of any sell-on fee (Lyon apparently got 25% of Monaco's fee from Man U, for example). On the playing side, I wonder if this will work out for Ryan. Many young promising players have disappeared at Celtic, not getting the opportunities or consistency they needed. They have a pretty bloated squad already. I think he would have been well advised to bide his time and mature his game before leaving for bigger pastures. The choice would then be greater for him in terms of options of bigger clubs. I think a team with a more progressive young manager would have suited him better, without all the baggage and delusions of Celtic. Look how rubbish they were against Malmo, for instance. And can we trust Hughes to spend any funds wisely? After the rotten transfer policy of this summer, I remain to be convinced.

2-4 into time added on. I believe Ali Sutherland scored two, and a header from Wedderburn. Vigurs scored our fourth goal. Raffa Da Vita scored both Staggies goals

With Celtic just receiving £11.5 million for Van Dijk, and their fans up in arms demanding more investment in the team, this would have been an extremely auspicious time for ICT to play hardball. The pressure was on the Celtic board. Having already stated their interest in Christie, missing out on his signature by lowballing Inverness over an extremely modest £1 million transfer fee (by Celtic's standards) would have been a huge embarrassment.

Miles Storey might not be too bad a signing, has plenty of games under his belt for a 21 year old and we desperately need a striker, although we’ve had all bloody summer to find someone to score goals! Not sure about this Sho-Silva guy. A 20 year old with not much experience only in till January? I would much rather Play Ferguson or Sutherland than some unknown we’ll be losing in a few months!

Exactly! So, RC look over the bridge and copy our outstanding policy over the past few years, while we abandon the policy that proved to be such a success and resort to their flawed tactics re: contracts. Without huge rescue packages from Uncle Roy in the past 2 seasons, they would definitely have been relegated: we don't have the luxury of rescue packages. There is another aspect to this from the fans' perspective: personally, I like to support a team made up primarily of loyal servants and young local talent. Loyalty of players is repaid in loyalty of the support. A big criticism from County fans over the last few seasons is that they barely recognised the teamsheet from week to week, never mind from season to season. They had no connection with players that were here today, gone tomorrow. Don't go there!

Good to see they are giving the newer sides some much needed coverage.

Frustrating that, like Billy McKay before him, the boy quite properly gets into his national squad while Gordon Strachan's eyesight is too poor for him to see this far North.

I think that is fair. They are not going to pay a million when they can sign him on a pre-contract in 4 months. If we couldn't agree a new deal for Christie, I would fancy our chances leaving it to a court to decide what is a fair settlement for training compensation. Ryan Gauld - sold for £3 mil James McCarthy - sold for £1.2 mil Stuart Armstrong - sold for £2 mil Both McCarthy and Armstrong have been awarded PFA and SFWA young player of the year awards, respectively. With Christie being SFWA young player of the year 2014/15, I think a good lawyer could easily make a very fair argument that > £1 mil is fair compensation.

This glosses over the questions as to why we have got ourselves in to this situation in the first place ? This is like using a steristrip when stitches are needed. Stokes is NEVER going to come to us unless Cellic agree to paying a fair percentage of his wage - and that would highlight how much they want to get rid of him. But he would be as much playing for his own future in a shop window. But if this is knee jerk - as it looks to me - we may well survive but will we prosper ? Or perhaps we are back to reality after living the dream. Let's hope this is not Livingston or Gretna revisited ?

I can't see us getting Stokes. I'd rather see us sign a striker than taking him on loan if we have to pay any sort of contribution to his salary - he'll be on at least £5k a week, probably a lot more. Apparently Watkins was only getting £400 a week with us so we are well off the mark Anything less than £1 mil for Christie is poor business. If he signed a pre-contract next year he would still only be 21 and we would receive training compensation - he is Scottish young player of the year and there are several examples of Scottish youth players not to win this title that have been signed for much more than that at his age. Agree with RIG we have shown our hand too early but I don't blame the board for selling if we get a decent offer

Have to agree with that one. Probably a sentimental decision from Butcher to give his buddy one last big deal after all their years working together. Richie delivered for Butcher, and Butcher delivered for Richie. Seems fair enough, although maybe not such good business from the club's perspective! To be fair, he certainly didn't look 'past it' before his injury, so he might still come back into the team and make a significant contribution. Since this thread is about looking on the bright side - we've had a terrible start but we aren't isolated at the bottom. In fact, one win would have us knocking on the door of the top 6. We've also now seen enough of the SPL to discern that most of the other teams aren't any better than us.

No they haven't. They have simply done a good bit of business. Nothing wrong with picking up a bargain on the last day of the sales.