Leaderboard

I wasn't at the game but did notice the stat on the BBC website that we had 13 attempts on goal. They may not have been very effective attempts but it does demonstrate a more positive approach. Last season there were only a handful of games where we had more attempts at goal. Against County our midfield was consistently 2nd to the ball in midfield and it sounds that the same was the case against Hearts. A midfield containing Draper, Tansey, Vigurs and Polworth really should not be out-fought in midfield by any team in this league, Get that sorted, and coupled with the more positive approach we should be creating enough chances to win a lot of games. A lack of cutting edge puts pressure on the defence so perhaps taking an early chance or two will settle the team and get us back on track. We certainly need a little more depth to the squad to provide cover and competition for places, but we should have enough quality to hold our own in this league. Foran had it right when he said he hasn't got the best out of the players yet. I just wonder how much of this is to do with a change in playing style. When Hughes came in and changed things round we changed from being a side which played with confidence to being an absolutely dire, nervy side for some while. Once players got used to the new system and what was expected of them, confidence grew and we got much more assured (if boring) performances. We now have a transition to a very different style again, and that transition is particularly challenging for the midfield who tend to control the pace of the game, and for the wing backs who have a very different role. To be effective, what is required has got to be second nature, and until it is players will appear to be hesitant. For instance, where Hughes may have looked for a midfielder to sit back off a player with the ball, keep shape and make it difficult for the opposition to play through us, Foran may want the player to pressure the guy with the ball further up the park. Not only will players be expected to do things differently, they will be finding team mates are not always where they are used to them being. Adapting to this change in style does not come overnight and is not as easy as it looks. It's a bit like driving in Europe. Yes you can drive OK on the right hand side of the road, but it takes a little while before you can drive as naturally and hesitation free as you do back home. We need to be patient. It will be worth it.

Think it might have the fact that Richie didn't get the job until the 30th of May? Paul Hartley had a wee bit of an advantage over Richie there...

Nonsense. If the manager says we will sign 2 players today thats pretty definitive. Where are they?

Was he naked, by any chance? The reason I ask is that he's probably still waiting for JD Sports to get his red and blue kit in stock.....

Twitter seems to be going a bit nuts and suggesting Gavin Gunning is on trial with us. Please no!

Oh the irony, and in your case I don't believe anything you say Good to see the STV has got you seething though Dougal

Official ICTFC ‏@ICTFC 27m27 minutes ago #ICTFC Development Squad face Motherwell at Station Park, Nairn tomorrow night. K.O. 7pm. As it say's on the tin, game Tuesday 23rd August at Nairn.

I would far rather he kept his cards close to his chest than blurted out every name that comes into his head.

I once watched Steve Paterson sign something fairly definitive in the boardroom ... 2 weeks later he was in Aberdeen !

Good suggestion. How about Copa Football? They do wicked retro shirts: http://www.copafootball.com/en/classic-retro-football-shirts I'd also like to see the club link up with a Highland company to sell cashmere scarves. A company called Savile Rogue sell cashmere ICTFC scarves - surely an opportunity here for the commercial department of our club to do a deal? http://www.savile-rogue.com/scotland-premier-league-c3/inverness-ct-c163

you can use stats to say almost whatever you want based on how you present them. One aspect that does not appear to have been considered in this discussion so far is that ICT have traditionally been said to pay lower wages but higher bonuses than some teams. This typically means that when we have a more successful season and get a windfall in the cup or elsewhere more of it is taken up with the player's share of that .... how other teams structure their bonuses could significantly skew any presented stats. If you want my unverifiable and uninformed opinion .... I would say we have amongst the lowest budgets in the premiership at the start of the season, perhaps comparable to 1 or 2 other teams, ... but by the end of the season, if we have performed well then we may have a higher total spend than several more teams dependent on those bonuses. it is NOT an exact science ! Incidentally - as far as I am aware we are not scheduled to receive our payment for OFW participation in the Euros until later in the year (September I think) and although I dont know the details, I am guessing that he might get a decent chunk of it as his signing bonus from prior to the end of last season because if he was unsigned or he re-signed later we would have got nothing !!!

Tobi Sho-Silva got another 2 for Bromley at the weekend .

The new manager is still finding his feet with regard to what and how much to share with the media and fans and when. I have no doubt that he and others are working hard to bring in players to improve both the starting XI and the squad. Give him a break.

I'd never pre-order clothing of any kind tbh. No reason at all why anyone should but, each to their own eh!. And, at £45 a shirt, for me, they can stay on the clothes rack much to the annoyance of the JD shareholders.

Stats = facts. What you should have said instead is "According to a flawed and unreliable survey......"

Clark Kent seen in Tesco yesterday......

Would rather get a fans strip made and boycott JD and Carbrini.

...but we've got one more cup than she has.

Well I was there and I know all about Body Language. There was little else to watch. All I am saying is that IF Richie was more Conti like than Wengeresque it would send a very, very strong message to the fans and the feckin players. Richie is simply being too feckin nice. Some of the tactics were poor but some individual performances were SHOCKING. "Tell it as it is" I say. If you had got a complimentary journey and ticket to Tynecastle you would understand. When you actually pay good money to get there and watch ABSOLUTE EMBARRASSING DROSS you have the entitlement to say your piece. That last sentence is the most laughable

Glad that Meekings is back in next to Warren, the team will be much stronger with both of them fit and up to speed. Apart from that it looks like it's going to be a tough season but I am right behind the team, let's go boys!

Caleyboy - you just don't seem to get it! Once again you seem to be falling into the trap of expecting the people who run the club in their own time to go out fundraising so you can purchase a product which you consider to meet your satisfaction at a price which is round about half what that product costs to produce. As it happens, the board already in many ways go above and beyond the economic realities and are even found, for instance, running car boot sales so you can partake of cut price football. There may indeed be some ways in which traditional revenue streams could be spruced up. For instance I understand that match day hospitality could be extended, but the overwhelming consideration is that the board finds itself running a company in a totally artificial market. There simply isn't enough demand for the product at prices dictated by the wage requirements of the company's employees. When this happens in the real world, you don't find the directors of Marks and Spencer, Tesco etc rushing about organising car boot sales etc so their customers can buy their products at a fraction of what they cost to produce. At Caley Thistle, you do. That's because in football there seems to be this expectation that other people will either make efforts to bridge the monetary gap on the consumers' behalf or subsidise the loss from their own pockets. If you want to see a better product at ICT, which has lived a charmed financial life so far, what are YOU prepared to do about it? In order to meet wage demands which are way above what the market can realistically sustain, would you be prepared to pay more at the gate for a superior product or go or help with the car boots sales? (Maybe you do - I don't know.) Football's fundamental problem is that players are paid far more than their realistic market value and until that situation is resolved, this kind of thing will continue to be commonplace. So much for the board. Now the management. It also seems from this thread that spectators have been so busy watching in detail the body language of Foran and Rice in the technical area that they can't have been able to watch the game at all. Either that or what we have been seeing are completely anecdotal and random "observations", with the individual's own spin on them, which have actually been contradicted by others who were also at the game. What business is it of people making such observations as to how the professionals charged with running the team go about doing so in detail? What has it to do with them whether Richie Foran jumps up and down waving his arms about or adopts an entirely different body language? That's Foran's business and nobody else's - irrespective of how strong the belief of these observers is that they know far better than experienced football professionals about how to run a team. It's maybe time for understanding that you don't solve football problems by throwing money at them or shouting loudly.

At least Kenny Cameron is out there trying

For the third week in a row we stood off the opposition far too much and were second to everything, and by the time we started playing, the game was already lost. I don't know whether it's fear or apathy that's been at the root of the last four performances, but there were several senior professionals in yesterday's side who got us to consecutive top six finishes by imposing themselves on games, competing for everything, and showing a belief that they were the equal or better of almost anyone they faced in the Premiership, and they should be ashamed of the way they've started the season.

Aye it's been a pish start to the season, we should absolutely be spending money we don't have on players we can't afford. That always ends well for clubs.

Mulraney just tweeted that hes fine and not on injury list. Some good news at least...

We scored that's good the last I heard it was 5-0. We played Terry Butcher style football and we did ok. Hughes came in and we went backwards and it wasn't just for one game, he wanted us to play a certain way. When we had 4 defenders to pass and 3 of our players are in front of the ball it seemed better to pass back to the goalie if a forward pass was too much of a gamble and play against 11 again. He played a 442 with Falkirk and brought it here changing to a 244 in attack. Against Aberdeen he had Josh and Garry too far up the park and too wide. Josh ma Guinness just ran in between them and had them 4-0 up by half time. He didn't change anything after the 1 st goal only at half time. His latter games were very gung ho and we dropped loads of points at the end of matches. Against Hearts last season he calmed things down at the end and settled for a point.It didn't happen often though. Hughes is a good bloke, he played a game of patience with his football and it worked wonders in cup games. Terry was more direct with defence sitting back with protection from midfield and long balls to 3 Irish guys who ran riot. We have a new manager who needs to cut his teeth somehow and it's a steep learning curve. It would have been a safer option as an assistant but our frugal club must see something in him to offer him the post with 4 years thrown in. I will be warming the hands up for a good bit of happy clapping on Saturday and feel the need to be a bit more vocal too.

I dont want my money back I want my tops! I also want them to apologise and donate the interest to charity.

Managers say nothing and get slated for keeping fans in the dark. Managers tell fans what's going on and are then accused of being liars.

Intriguing that STV seems to know more about ICT's wages than the shareholders do, since these aren't even detailed in the club's accounts. Then there's the Ross County figure of EXACTLY (!) £36,000. What on earth has that club been doing with its money if it's needed millions written off by Roy MacGregor and STILL pays thousands a year less than anyone else?? You should never believe everything the media tell you!

Getting pissed off yet? Where's the money? Hughes was used as a scapegoat for the lack of investment and ineptitude from the board... you only have to look around the SPFL to see it is littered with players that should still be wearing an ICT shirt if we had been proactive with contracts or offered a competitive salary. We don't know what was going on behind closed doors but I imagine it was a constant argument between Hughes and the board whilst he tried to get something off them.. when he got nowhere he tried to force the clubs hands through the media (not very classy). I don't blame him and still maintain he is the best manager we have ever had at the club and we paid his severance package the next season after he won us the Scottish Cup and got the club in Europe.. madness! We now have Foran, who wouldn't have been my choice but you can't doubt his commitment to the club.. understandable considering he must be one of our highest ever paid players and was given a 4 year contract which he was injured throughout (not his fault though). I have been impressed with his interviews and would love him to become the manager the board expects him to be ... but he is being hung out to dry here and NEEDS money to sign players or it's only a matter of time before the fans turn on him and it is not his fault. We hare going backwards.. not only on the pitch but off it. I was looking after my daughter today so couldn't make the match .. been struggling a lot over the last few seasons to get to games but don't care any less about our future. This isn't an overreaction to the 5-1 .. it's been on the cards for a long time. 5 subs on the bench today, none of them that you could argue should start (maybe Doran) ... there is no competition for places and although I do think there is quality in the 11 that were picked today complacency is inevitable. Some of our fans need to wake up and see that we can't keep letting players leave the club for nothing and I hold the board solely responsible for the situation we are in at the moment. Might only be the start of the season but we are almost nailed on for relegation due to lack of investment and planning.

You have a replacement Board lined up? One that will guarantee that the team on the pitch wins? Let's hear it, then.

"Pride of the Highlands" crap is probably putting them off producing what is otherwise a good looking design!

No fekin chance, easier to change our badge than to leave this bone!!!!

oh I see. That means St J have a SMALLER playing budget than we do. Stupid me.

I wonder if you would have taken a similar view of some complete layman sounding off about treatment of the mentally ill of Lancashire?