Leaderboard

This Raven saga is starting to remind me of when Butcher started attempting to freeze out Munro, Duncan and later Tokely. He might not be flamboyant, but a more solid, reliable, steady full back at this level you'll have trouble finding. The fact he's come out asking for a deal in the press and is still yet to get one gives me the impression that he finds Yogi someone he doesn't want to or finds difficult to speak to, something that could well give credence to the rumours that Yogi's man management isn't the best.

Surprised some people took positives from that game. Players like Meekings, Hughes, Storey played in the wrong positions. Not fielding our strongest team. Negative tactics again, possession football where, we have it they cant isnt working - sadly we arent Arsenal or Barcelona so dont have the players for that, all we do is play passes and put ourselves under pressure and into mistakes, slow build up at almost pedestrian level, players like Vigurs who want to offload the ball as quicky as possible even if it plays the next man in trouble. The team seems right now to reflect Yogi's negative attitude towards the club, signings and contribution of the current players. I dont mind if we loose because we played well or were entertaining - sadly we are timid, tedious, predictable, without creativity and in each defeat its deserved.

Couldn't agree more. Can't help but feel that a fit Raven at right back yesterday would have given us more width and penetration going forward. Meanwhile, Meekings back in the middle with Warren would have given us a bit more solidity at the back. It would be absolutely crazy not to offer Raven a contract.

I think hughes was given cash for both transfer windows this year but chose to spend it on midfielders most of whom he doesn't play. listen to the Dubliners singing a pub with no beer and substitute " a team with no strikers" remembering our only striker ( found by chairman) is really a left winger according to the manager

Maybe the refs we get have had bad games, certainly Collum in the past, but recent defeats have had nothing to do with poor ref decisions and everything to do with poor management or player decisions.

Agree with these points. Has Hughes really had to work with a reduced budget? If so why has it been reduced after such a profitable season or two? if it hasn't our relatively small budget never stopped other managers getting folk in. At the end of the day, regardless of the circumstances our dealings in the transfer market have been bizarre. We've needed at least one striker for over a year now when we only had Mckay up front. For some puzzling reason Hughes has continued to sign rakes of midfielders for the side and then, erm, never play them most of them.I sympathise with his financial restrictions but his constant whinging about it is tiresome when a lot of the problems we have are partly down to his suspect moves in the transfer market and also the clubs odd approach to contract talks.

I think he is being honest actually, in response to losing two of our better players...although with Vincent's injury record less of a miss perhaps, no matter how grateful I am for his cup final goal. I can see a lot of frustration in Hughes comments, he has virtually no money to play with. The suggestion that we are interested in two Partick Thistle players is probably just a smokescreen to molify the fans. We hardly ever sign anyone from the Scottish leagues, Wedderburn, is the highest placed player we have signed form Scotland for a while, before that it was probably Andrew Shinnie following Rangers travails. He is right in terms of spending power we are probably in the bottom two in the SPFL, and that comment is aimed at managing expectations. Let's be honest in a league that is hardly known for eye-catching signings from outside its own league, Inverness are shopping at the 4th and 5th level of the English leagues, usually for players at dead ends of their careers.... and on pretty low wages probably (and usually short contracts). If any of them look half decent and do well in our league, they get hoovered up by the 10 teams above us in the spending power league Which makes our record in the SPFL and Cup's even more impressive Can't see it changing without a rich investor (and I haven't won the lottery yet!).... so we need to do more with bringing youngsters through. We also need to shape our contracts better so that we actually get transfer fees from sales

If Kilmarnock and Dundee Utd go through the rest of the season winning the same number of points per game as they have till now, then we could lose all our remaining games and still stay up. I'm sure at least one of them will do better than that, but even with pretty poor form we should pick up enough points to stay ahead of the two of them. It's next season I'm worried about.

Ben Greehalgh also on target this afternoon v Basingstoke.

1 statistic from this season - we have lost every single game after a break from football. 0-1 Motherwell (after the summer) 2-0 Kilmarnock (October Int'l break) 2-1 Partick (November Int'l break) 1-2 Motherwell (March Int'l break) All against mediocre sides as well.

If David Raven is not offered a new deal it is a disgrace. One of our best performers for a few years now and a player that wants to stay. We have no one at the club who is better than him in his position and going by John Hughes recruitment so far, i cant see him signing someone anywhere near as solid and consistent. The lack of players signed up for next season is a major worry.

Always seem to scraping around for finance, becoming tiresome does not inspire future fans or players. Time for the board to step up and take the club forward instead of standing with their arms crossed feeling hard done by. It was them after all that accepted only half of what Ryan Christie was really worth and not to mention the pittance we got for McKay and feck all for Shinnie . Need to manage contracts so much better.

just watched the 2 minutes of highlights on bbc ( that sums up yesterdays borefest for me) didn't see it from the north stand but if Williams leave the mishit shot warren heads the ball clear. how many times this year have we lost goals due to lack of communication. either the players are not talking to each other or someone is not listening. my memory not the best but devines weak header to stokes with tremarco ready to head clear in cup replay, yesterday, devine and tremarco I think again earlier in season. I cant share the optimism of some on here. I think du are on a roll and can see them winning all their games after the split and will probably beat us next week. why - strikers cant see where goals are coming from for us. one striker in the team playing left wing. amazing

Everything boils down to money. We have to have a first team squad and we have to have a development squad. Four or five years ago our average player wage was suggested as being around £700 a week. Now its being reported at over £1,000. The club income has remained pretty much the same over the years but the costs have risen. I'm inclined to think that cash is also the reason why contracts are as they are. Each time a player is offered a new contract there will likely be an increase in wage, a signing on fee and maybe even an agents fee to be agreed and paid. If a club is working hand to mouth, with no cash in the bank, as I think we are then that money is not always available. I'm also inclined to think maybe the chairman doesn't want to make offers until he can work out the projected budget for next year. To do that he needs to see what position we finish this term. The club is competing with County for fans and sponsorship in an area where there's not any big industry with loads of cash in their advertising budgets and unless a rich sugar daddy comes along with unlimited funds then I think there are two choices for survival. 1. We continue as we are and make the best of what we've got or 2. We become the first top league part time team in the country. Second choice does not bear thinking about.

Going slightly further back, over the last 10 games, only Killie are on a worse run of form than us and that's only because we have a slightly better goal difference over those 10 games.

Is there much point in ever talking about who we are approaching.

Is it Roberts turn to fall out with Hughes? He was easily our best player first half against Hamilton, and hasn't featured since I think we need to get at least a point against Hearts, because Dundee Utd away looks a tough one

You can only use the "smash and grab" excuse so many times. Why is it that we're on the end of so many muggings at home this season? It's exactly the same script time and again. Eventually you have to admit it can't just be bad luck. Tactically we're a soft touch. We play like sand dancers for 90 minutes, knocking the ball around our own half like a low intensity training drill while our opponents hit fast and hard on the break. We need to get the likes of Story and Mutombo on the ball in and around the box as often as possible. Our current strategy has Danny Devine in possession more than our whole forward line put together.

Missed the young boys the day. fans were quite poor singing wise the day

We weren't good today but I thought we were unlucky to lose. Motherwell surprised me both by how poor they were and how negative they were. It looked like they were playing for a draw and wasting time from the start, although to be fair to them, that was probably good tactics as a key outcome for them was not to lose against a team challenging them for a top six spot. We wanted the result more than them but we just didn't have the rub of the green. We should have beaten Motherwell today although it was not a top six team performance. I thought both Fon Williams and Storey had their poorest games that I've seen. Meekings is not a right back and seemed reluctant to get beyond the halfway line. Draper is effective when he surges forward - Yogi needs to tell him to get forward a lot more. Mutombo does a lot that is good and positive but far too often he then chooses the wrong option and undoes all the good work. I didn't see Liam Hughes at County but I thought he put in a good shift today. I have no idea why Hughes took him off when we were chasing the game and needed height in the box. My MOTM was Tremarco. Always gives 100%, put in some decent crosses and also got into great positions at the back post, Whilst were generally a bit more positive than sometimes, our problem remains that we do not get forward enough with pace and as a result we allow the opposition to get lots of bodies behind the ball. We then simply do not have the quality to open them up.

Said it was Raven fault for the 1st goal

"If we keep doing that we are going to be right up against it. It's simple, we need to put the ball in the net more often and keep the back door shut." 1. Well play Storey as a striker and not a winger and he will score goals when he is in the box 2. Play the defenders in there right positions #MEEKINGSFORCENTREBACK

Is it a coincidence that since Brian Rice joined up with Yogi our run of results has been the poorest since 2009?

"I'm honest enough to say I don't know what I'm going to get from this team now" Comment from Yogi on BBC website this evening. Very bizarre thing to say, surely that's his job. Is he thinking of walking?

We do OK against the better teams - which is a relief. If we hadn't got 16 points agains Aberdeen and County we would be definite favourites for relegation. The injury/bad luck thing masks the fact that Hughes recruitment has been questionable. We needed another striker while Mckay was on our books. So we were one short when we had Ofere. We have signed a succession of not-strikers since Ofere left, so it is no surprise we have struggled to score. it is all very good playing pretty football, but there is no threat up front. Mutombo looked threatening today, but we have seen all season that one player can't do it on their own. We have also failed to replace the one bit of class we had in our team Ryan Christie.

I thought we played quite well in the second half, but the tactics are woeful. We should have won the game, but Yogi has lost the plot. One win in 8, that is relegation form i'm afraid. On another note, there was no need for some of the abuse directed towards Williams today from a minority. Petty, immature abuse from grown adults. Gimps.

Sat 02 Apr Highland League C Dingwall, G Wood (Formantine 5 - Huntly 1) D Gillespie (2) (Wick A 2 - Brora R 2)

Beaton had a better game than most of our players.

Oh joy. If Collum is half as bad as Beaton today he will be worse than terrible.

I agree. Theres a fine line between creating a siege mentality forming a close knit team and just completely selling your club short and i think unfortunately John Hughes is falling completely into the latter right now and selling our club well short. He's either intentionally or hopefully unintentionally bordering on complete blatant disrepect to the club and has been for a while now.

Unfortunately uou need to be a magician to get the quality we would like for our limited budget

My objection is that I don't see any foresight from the club. We all knew at the beginning of the season that we only had 1 or 2 signed for next year. So surely, you get in first and say to the guys you want: Here's the offer, let's start negotiating. Yes, some might turn you down because they want to move on, but at least everybody knows where they stand and the Jan window can be used as the start of planning for the next season. Polworth, Raven and Fon Williams all had to go to the press to get some action, and Raven is still getting the cold shoulder...obviously at the back of that long line of talented right backs that we have! Meanwhile, Dundee nip in and take the negotiating high ground with Williams and Vincent: We might not have been able to compete, but we had the opportunity to try to tie them down before Dundee were in the frame. It all seems a bit disorganised and last minute. Of course financial security is paramount, but there would be nothing more certain to drive austerity in he future than relegation - likely a near miss this season, but much more likely with wholesale changes next year. Refresh, yes, complete overhaul: No thanks.

Would much rather live within our means. History suggests that having the backing of apparently wealthy backers in Scottish football tends to end in tears....

One of the worst games of football i have seen. Motherwell were poor but for us being a home team needing a win to get in the top six we were terrible. The way we play is horrendous to watch, sideways and backwards passing all the time, there is no pace or quality to the way we attack. The amount of times we play passes back to Fon Williams is incredible. Miles Storey is our only recognised striker yet we play him on the wing, then when he goes up front we take him off. The changes made today were laughable, when we eventually made any. Hughes seems to take so long to try and change things. We are trying to win the game so we take Meekings off and replace him with Horner. Why not Jordon Roberts, if we are wanting to win the game then surely he must be a better option. Its going to be a long and nervous last seven games, lets hope we can get enough points to stay above 11th place. At the moment im not sure we can.

Another last minute goal conceded, how surprising. Looks as though we took off our attacking players for midfielders and lost the initiative. This has happened multiple times now this season.

The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. The tactics and substitutions today were absolutely shocking. Starting to fear that Yogi is becoming more of a hindrance than a help to the players.

Let Macdonald away with murder. No booking for Lasley at the penalty. No booking at the end for celebrating with fans, allowed Ripley to waste ridiculous amounts of time. And that's just for starters. Oh oh and missed a push by Draper and a bit of basketball by Vigurs - who he was standing right beside. He was woeful in the 9 man semi v Hearts, and has pretty much matched that nadir every other time I have seen him. If we could have Andrew Dallas for the Dundee Utd game, then my shyte ref bingo card can be completed in a week

One win in 8 and it was a 3-0 win against the League Cup champions, how? How are we actually this pish, honestly..