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Can't help but feel a lot of these late goals are the result of our pedestrian football which can often see us chasing the game towards the end to either nick a draw or sitting back defending a lead. Nearly 40% of the goals we concede are in the last 15 minutes of a game.

It's John Hughes, who, on occasions, has chosen not to fill the bench - for reasons known only to him! This has been a source of on-going puzzlement this season. I don't recall the SPFL board refusing any of our requests for postponing games this season. The football club employs the doctor. But regardless of employer, doctors in the UK are regulated by their professional body, the General Medical Council. Doctors can be 'struck off' by the GMC. Acts of dishonesty would seriously jeopardise a doctor's fitness to practice. Although you didn't specifically state any such thing, the underlying implication evident from your comment is that Hearts are up to 'funny business'. Can we please leave all this unedifying paranoia to clubs like Celtic!

Aye, but will he play him when he returns or stick him on the bench? That is what he was doing when he was fully fit, so i'm not hopeful. *Awaits happy clappy response*

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/spfl/880755/fon-williams-looking-sign-new-caley-thistle-contract/ Fon Williams sounds very keen to stay in Inverness. He didn't have his finest 94 minutes on Saturday but hopefully he can be signed up soon.

Got another clip from the Hearts Training ground this morning

There's no funny business going on here, but it is interesting that a postponement happens on the word of someone paid by, and probably a supporter of, a team wanting the postponement. In bad weather, an independent ref assesses the pitch. Is there a presumption that club doctors are always honest and thorough, and club groundsmen are not? Doctors do have an ethical code etc, but they also believe their patients, so when a keeper says he has got the shits really bad and feels terrible, the doc is hardly going to call him a liar! Everybody knows how easy it is to get a sick note from a doctor, even one who is not on your payroll. Just saying that there is scope for a bit of manipulation in these situations, particularly if it is remotely borderline. agree though that we don't want to risk our squad getting this bug. Plus we might have more players back by next week, so it's not all bad.

The way we're playing at the moment they'd have still beaten us 1-0, with a 95th minute winner scored by an unknown 17yo making his debut.

Hearts players were literally shi**ing themselves At the prospect of playing us.

Got a piccy of Hearts in training this morning. I am reliably informed that this is all of the remaining squad available.

Not sure if JH has the same philosophy or not, but a few of us had a conversation with Paul Mariner when he was Toronto manager and he was asked the same question because TFC were doing the same thing .... and he said he would not fill the bench with youngsters to make up the numbers as they had not earned it ! His stance was you earned your place in the team or on the bench or you might become entitled and arrogant ! He was sacked less than 6 months later ......

Given that JH seems to find it almost impossible to recruit quality players to the club I find it surprising and disappointing that he is not prioritising the resigning of a very reliable and versatile defender who is already here and who has gone on record as wanting to commit his future to us. Ifind it even more disturbing and surprising that he is not starting at a time when we are leaking the soft sort of goals we seldom do when he is playing. I hope that rumours of a falling out with the manager are not true but if they are I know which one I would rather stay....

I agree. Other than the home Astra game and Saturday he has been pretty sound. that said, would like Deano to stay too!

He has been badly missed and his welcome return would mean that one of the best young centre halves Josh Meekings could take his place in central defence. Winner twice over.

Mariner is and was a t*** IMHO but on this one I do think he had a point. This review of his tenure at TFC is somewhat humorous but also accurate. I was at a few of the meetings mentioned !!! Personally, I want to see the bench full every week - assuming we have players who can fill it. However, with the young players, much like giving them game time sparingly as they develop into the next Christie or Polworth, its also behoven on the manager or his coaching staff to keep an eye on how the players react to getting time with the first team squad in general .. too much of a 'billy big time' attitude when they go back to the development squad or whichever team they are in then its counter productive and they'd be better off not on the bench ... If we only have 5 or 6 fit subs and we are headed to Celtic Park or Pittodrie etc then why not give them an incentive to perform well in training or the development games with the reward of being part of the matchday squad and soaking up the atmosphere and experience ... but they should not be there at the expense of other fit first teamers if we have a full complement to choose from.

A MASSIVE player for us for so long. I hope everything is OK behind the scenes and he gets the new contract he deserves.

Personally I don't the the concession or scoring of late goals as a 'swings and roundabouts' situation whereby its nice when they go for you and bad when they go against but overall they will even themselves out in the long run. This philosophy is more applicable to dubious penalty awards, goals being rightly/wrongly disallowed for offside etc. In other words events that aren't under the control of the team. Regardless of whether or not we have benefited from scoring late goals, we should be doing better at making sure we don't concede late on and throw away valuable points. There are probably a number of factors that have caused this: the tactics when defending a single goal lead, physical tiredness, and also mental fragility which only compounds and becomes more and more of an issue every time we concede another late goal. I would suggest that all three of these factors needs to be looked at.

I can only think there has been a falling out. I mentioned an incident in the Stirling cup game ,we had just scored and Hughes dragged Raven all the way across the pitch to give him an earful. Am I right in thinking he was a stand in captain for a couple of games, he may have stuck up for a few players or voiced an opinion either way a fans player, If injured hope he gets well soon we need him, if a falling out for voicing an opinion lets get on with it we need leaders on the park leaders off the park seem to have lost the place.

Does anybody know what "contagious" means ? Our next game/s could have been postponed due to a strong potential that the virus carried into the stadium was passed on. From a medical and prevention perspective this was a no-brainer and there are no counter arguments that can be made.

Of course sneckboy, you are 100% correct, I never implied making things up, just assumed ailments may be exaggerated slightly. Just one of those things and I've heard of many a manager wanting a game called off over the years but it never seems to happen. Hope they're all fit and well for Friday night.

SPFL Rule G16 sets out the goalkeeper situation. It's in line with the laws of the game. I wonder if Hearts will be able to field a team against Aberdeen on Friday night?

Wouldn't surprise me if Raven went to County the way he appears to be being treated here. They have been shipping goals badly this season. I think he would suit their style of play. That would be a real sickener. Hughes, Cameron - get this fine young player signed up ASAP.

How come when we had 9 first team injured we could not get a postponement- ah we live North of Perth of course , how foolish of me not to understand central belt bias !

Good post. People have complained about the impact of injuries this season but it's interesting to compare our best current team with the team that took to the park on Hughes' first match in charge. Ross, Shinnie, Watkins and McKay were the four players who started then who have since left. In the meantime, Christie has burst into the side and has left. Vincent and Williams who were also here when Hughes arrived are leaving at the end of the season. Other Butcher signings like Tansey and Raven may also leave. Hughes (or the Chairman) has brought in new players, but of those who show even any potential to match those who have left (Storey, Roberts, Vigurs, Mutombo) none are yet signed up for next season. The stark truth is that the talent available to Hughes when he took over was significantly better than what is available now. And as things stand, we will be significantly weaker again at the start of next season.

Raven has been one of the first names on the teamsheet since he signed and is undoubtedly one of the most solid, reliable players in the squad. He was offered a deal last season (very late as I recall) and was only offered a year despite saying he wanted it to be longer. This season he's says again he wants a new deal yet seemingly has yet to be offered anything and referred was very scathing of the negotiations that took place last year. To me it sounds like things behind the scenes are in no way fine and dandy.

I actually don't have a problem with this. To be fair to Hearts, they really have no particular reason for wanting to duck the game. They are in 3rd place 12 points behind Aberdeen and 12 points ahead of Motherwell. They are going to finish 3rd and they are out of the cup. I appreciate that with the size of their squad they probably could field a side, but there is a likelihood of other players falling ill in the next 24 hours and a trip up and down the A9 in a coach would not be a good idea in the circumstances. It is certainly against any medical advice they will be getting. The nature of the problem makes this quite a different issue than shortages through injury - it is about preventing spread of the outbreak and not just about player availability. With that in mind, there is also the point that if Hearts were to field infected players then the illness could be passed to our squad. In any case, the game has been re-scheduled for a week tomorrow when it is likely that their squad will still not be fully fit (but no longer infectious). What also benefits us is that we now don't have a match prior to the Utd game and can therefore prepare fully for that without risking further injuries or suspensions. Saturday's game is a massive game and will be a huge step towards securing our survival if we win. By the way, I think the problems started with Oshaniwa on Saturday. He got sent off and went for an early barf.

I agree

I said last season I was disappointed he was only given a 1 year deal, and now equally disappointed he seems to be unfancied and possibly on his way out. Don't see the logic behind it.

You are not alone in your thinking !!! He was there on Sat I saw him outside with his beautiful little girl .

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

Sometimes players get better the longer they are out. He'll be playing for England soon.

I would agree with Mariner. After all, his footballing experience is massive,

They should be made to forfeit the game - I'm sure they would manage to find a team then.

I don't know if Yogi and Mariner have anything in common but I would totally agree with Mariner's opinion on giving young players a place on the bench if they haven't earned it. I would also totally agree with Yogi in that we have as many players on the bench that are fit to play and deserve to be there. If we are short because of not having a big enough squad then so be it. If a youngster doesn't show promise, doesn't work his socks off in training and dev games or has a questionable attitude he shouldn't get anywhere near the first team either in training or matches. At the end of the day Yogi, not the supporters is being paid to make that call.