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I think we should've sacked him in January, or at least in April when it became clear that we were looking certain to go down. But when we kept him it seemed as though the board had decided to persevere and keep going, thinking the experience would make Foran a better manager. I don't agree that it would've but fair enough, it's at least a plan. To sack him now? It seems to fly in the face of any plan. One reason why the club has enjoyed success in the past few decades is how we've managed changes in manager. We've suffered from losing managers to bigger, richer clubs but we've used that to help develop the club and improve. When Paterson left, we got money for him and recruited probably the most promising young coach in Scotland at that time and gave him a settled, excellent squad to work with. When Robertson left we got money for him and were able to bring in Brewster, who had success in his first time at the club and improved the professionalism of the players. Between then we had a few shakier managerial spots but then when Butcher came in we had someone who clearly had a plan for rebuilding and used his pull and influence to reshape the club for the top flight. When Butcher left, we appointed Hughes, who got a great squad sitting second in the league and helped develop them into the best season our club has ever had, and likely ever will have. The common factor is that we knew when to let a manager go, we knew how to recruit a replacement and we used these scenarios to advance the club. When Dundee United came in for Hughes last season we should've let him go. We should've taken compensation and allowed him to leave - it was clear that we were stagnating, that Hughes' signings were dross but we also had a better squad and would've been an attractive prospect for a manager. As it stands, I think our board decided to stand too firm against United, ended up falling out with Hughes and put us in the position of costing us money and trying to build Foran as manager on the cheap. It hasn't worked and we're now down and Foran has had his managerial career sacrificed for it. It's a sad indictment of the management of the club at all levels. What's vital now, though, is that we appoint someone solid and who can get us into a position to challenge to go back up, as well as moving the club forward. Not someone who's a complete throw of the dice but equally not some dreary conveyer belt Scottish manager from the 'Jobs For The Boys' school.

Good blog by @hislopsoffsideagain on why it was the right thing to remove Foran from the managers post. http://nareystoepoker.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/richie-foran-leaves-inverness-horse.html

Paul Gascoigne? Good Lord.

We may not yet have a managerial short list but, even as early as May, that must be on the shortlist for worst post of the year !

Even though he was a poor manager, yesterday marks the end of a club legend after eight years. I think he deserved better than about five sentences in a statement written in English so poor that even a P7 could write better.

Why do so many fans want to back for previous managers?. The club needs new blood both on and off the field, not those who were here in the past.

Why, thank you very much sir.

It's a welcome sign of progress that, for the first time ever, nobody is seriously suggesting the return of Steve Paterson or John Robertson. How many more managerial changes will there have to be before we see the end of calls to bring back Butcher or Hughes?!

Despite my desperation for this outcome, it isn't possible to celebrate it now that it has become a reality. On a human level, a guy who loved the club with every fibre of his being has lost his job and deserves our sympathy. If only he'd been offered/accepted help from an experienced head several months ago, the outcome woild have been different, I am sure. If he walked for the good of the club, then respect to him... I wish him well wherever he goes. From the football perspective, this was the right outcome, if a few months too late. Let's hope the damage is not totally irreversible. Now we need to act fast to get the right person in to settle the squad and give us a pop at promotion. I have no idea who that might be, but experience must be top of the shopping list. Fingers crossed that the Board get this appointment right.

Love it! Bring Terry, Maurice and Steve home! Our most successful team. They will the Caley great again. We'll be back

The club wouldn't bring Latapy back. His influence on the team was by many accounts, was minimal and his behaviour and lack of dedication was why he was removed from his position. There's absolutely no chance of the club considering him. Jimmy Calderwood seldom turned up when he was County manager. Not a nice man either. No thanks. We need a professional, not a dinosaur.

Arrigo Sacchi - zero caps Alex Ferguson - zero caps Jose Mourinho - zero caps As for not having Paul Hartley because some Dundee fans didn't like him, did they dislike him when he led them to promotion? Did they dislike him when he got them into the top six? Was he unpopular at Alloa when he got them promoted twice despite having no money to spend? Arsene Wenger seems to be pretty unpopular at Arsenal these days. van Gaal left United under a cloud. Would we also turn them down because football fans are fickle? Instead, we can have Paul Sheerin - was he popular with the fans when he relegated Brechin? Were they cheering Barry Wilson at Borough Briggs when Elgin lost time after time? I wouldn't be against any of these but at least have some thought behind it.

And John Barnes has 79

Butcher (77 international caps) / Malpas (55 international caps) / Marsella for me. Despite a few vocal critics on this forum, in my experience about 80% of fans IRL would love to see the band to get back together. Our biggest failing in recent years has been recruitment. Who better to sign the next Warren, Meekings, Raven, Mckay, Watkins, Vincent, Brill, Draper and Shinnie brothers than the lads who signed the originals?

Aye right......

Barry Ferguson with Gazza as assistant is the only choice.

We won 3 out of the 5 games we had left when Malpas returned but two of those were against teams that had nothing to play for so I'd be wary about trying to link his return with an apparent upturn in our fortunes.

I am still somewhat bemused or indeed confused. Kenny Cameron's resignation was announced last Monday and Willie Finlayson was unveiled as his successor much less than 24 hours later. This is followed by six days of complete silence during which it emerges that Richie Foran was personally hiring and firing players as late as Friday, hence heightening expectations that he would be staying on. Then, in another strangely timed late-Monday announcement, it emerges that Richie is leaving. What if the new manager doesn't fancy players who have been kept on or would have liked to retain players who have been let go?

Of course you have to feel for him on a personal level. No doubt he had great dreams of establishing himself as a great ICT manager, and it must be painful to accept the reality. However, time is the healer, and I hope he finds something where he will prosper. But it had to happen, he backed himself into a corner and there was no realistic prospect, or indeed evidence, that he could get the club and himself out of it. It was always too much too soon for him. Maybe he will feel a relief at the pressure being taken off him - management is unbelievably stressful, and the last months can't have been much fun. I have no doubt the board were also cognisant of the fans' views on the matter, which was almost universal, and it would have been next to impossible to carry on with such opposition, liable to spill over into an unpleasant and uncomfortable atmosphere. But now we can look forward to what was always necessary - a clean break, with new faces, and some real optimism and hope for next season. We made some terrible mistakes last season, but we have the core of a great club, with a great, if short, tradition. There is no reason we can't regain that and get back to where we were. What a relief.

It has got to be someone the players will look up to, someone with a proven record at premier level or above, someone who can motivate the team and the club. we don't want to be languishing in the lower leagues, one season down is all we dare afford if we want to regain our true status. Should the Board select the level of Paul Sheeren or Darren Dodds then A director of football is a must and the selection for that post is equally difficult. The Board now has it's work cut out to find a person or persons that will kick start a new beginning to Inverness C T bringing innovation and success by the end of season 2017/18 and restore the faith of the supporters and attract a larger following for the Club in the future. A big ask but that is the way forward and it is possible given the commitment by the right people.

We need a manager who wants to manage ICT ,as opposed to a manager looking for a job, if that makes sense?

I don't blame Richie for this mess I blame KC and the directors who agreed to put him straight in at the top, a year as assistant to someone else might have bore fruit for next season, but even if lessons have been learnt here and potentially he could have done a better job next year, the confidence of the fans and respect of the players has been totally lost. No way back. Never nice to have to feel happy about anyone losing their job, but it's absolutely critical to our success and hopefully immediate return to the PL

Likewise - I really wanted Richie to succeed, but it just hasn't worked. Lets remember Richie as an inspirational player & captain. He isn't the 1st player to struggle with the move into management (Franck Sauzee & Willie Miller spring to mind) and both are, rightly, still regarded as legends by their respective clubs. Lets do likewise with Richie & wish him all the best for the future

It's at times like this that I wish football had something like the Representation of the People Act which operates to regulate comment on election matters and will, for instance, ban all political discussion on polling day. Random names of managerial "candidates" simply fly around the media like machine gun bullets and you do have to wonder about the basis on which they appear? Is the regular appearance of such and such a name based on any substance at all or is it all just part of a silly game that media play at times like this? Over many years, I've lost count of the number of club directors and chairmen who have told me about the waves of boardroom hilarity created by "revelations" such as "Johnny Smith is thought to be a contender". The principle seems to be that if you throw enough names about you may get lucky and be able to claim "you heard it here first folks". Nobody, after the event, ever seems to take stock of just how wrong about 95% of the speculation was. I am strongly tempted to put it about that well known Dutch coach Ruud Boogers is the front runner, just to see what ensues. If it were Ross County, I would probably instead go with experienced Russian manager Igor Gudgikoff.

Back page of the P&J names Sheerin, Gus McPherson and Malpas as candidates. All uninspiring candidates, Sheerin had an up and down tenure.p with Arbroath and now coaches kids, Malpas has a poor managerial record on his own and Gus McPherson got his team relegated last time he managed at the level we are at. If these are the sort of candidates we get then it suggests we're trying to do things on the cheap and haven't really planned for Foran leaving. Hopefully it's just a load of paper talk.

Yaaas! Another fan talking sense! 100% agree. Butcher and his team are the boys to take us back.

What an excellent article and 100% spot on for me.

The same Latapy who apparently had a habit of going AWOL and when he did turn up was allegedly extremely lazy. Amazing how some fans still cling onto this myth that he was some kind of coaching guru.

What, no Derek Adams on the list?

Ally McCoist has a win percentage of 72% in his managerial career, higher than Pep Guardiola has managed throughout his career. Win percentages don't tell you much. Steven Pressley was manager of Falkirk several years ago. He managed for three seasons in the First Division, during which time he finished third three times, missing out on promotion by 12, 27 and 25 points. I don't have the full picture but I would severely doubt that teams like Dunfermline, Raith Rovers, Ross County, Dundee, Partick Thistle and Morton were paying significantly higher wages than Falkirk at that time. Basically he achieved what you'd expect for a club like Falkirk in the First Divsiion but never really managed to mount a significant title challenge. His record at Coventry is mixed but that club has really significant issues off the field, with the club going into administration, being docked points in successive seasons and having to play home games in Northampton due to a dispute with teh owners of their stadium. He did relatively OK for the first few seasons but had a significant drop off towards the end, including getting knocked out of the cup by a non-league side. Coventry haven't improved a great deal since he left and were relegated to the bottom tier of English football last season, suggesting that maybe Pressley wasn't the problem. At Fleetwood he stabilised the club after they'd had a shaky start and lead them to safety. He resigned in a rather odd way after signing a load of players, maybe the owner fancied his replacement more or there had been a falling out. I have to admit that I don't like Pressley. When he was at Falkirk he always had an excuse for his failure to get them challenging for promotion, usually along the lines of playing the right way, bringing through youngsters etc etc. I think Alex Smith joined the club around that time and that is Smith's stock in trade so it doesn't surprise me. In England he's done OK, nothing amazing, no great success but not been that abject. On the plus side he'll have a lot of experience of looking for players in England, he's not raw, he obviously understands management. On the downside I don't think he's got what it takes to take a team and drive them to win - when he was at Falkirk he was full of excuses for them finishing way behind the sides I listed earlier, usually about playing teh right way, bringing through youngsters etc. Alex Smith was his director of football and he was signing from his hymn sheet. That's not what we need, we need to win - look at the two managers who won us the First Division previously, both focused winners, whatever weaknesses they had. Add to that he'll probably think he can get a job at a higher level than the Scottish Championship I'd say that he's unlikely to take it.

If Calderwood got anywhere near the front door of the stadium I'd be more than likely not to go to a game. His disgraceful bullying of a young lad at Aberdeen (maybe Killie I can't recall at this time) was utterly shameful.

Looking at win percentages across managers careers is not what Moneyball / analytics is about. Looking at stats like that raw don't tell you a great deal - a manager operating on a low budget with a side punching above their weight in terms of which division they are in will likely have a lower win percentage than someone with loads of money who still performs below expectations. A good example would be Stevie Aitken at Dumbarton - he's got a win percentage of 25% so he must be a dud right? Wrong. He's working with a part-time club in a division that not only has mostly full time teams but teams with some of the highest budgets in Scottish football. He's done a remarkable job to keep them in that division and to get so many wins. Also, that doesn't mean that Stevie Aitken is going to be a great manager if he went to a bigger club. Look at Ian Murray, his predecessor who had a fantastic record and was hailed as a solid appointment when he went to St Mirren. He turned into a disaster. Dick Campbell is one of the most successful lower league managers in decades in this country but I doubt any full-time team would look at him.

Key questions remain about the roles of Scott Kellacher, Ryan Essen, Brian Rice, possibly Duncan Shearer and Charlie before we know what is to happen next. I suspect that is or has happened and the club will slim team/coaching management structure that mabut include Maurice Malpass. Meantime, we need to get Fisher signed regardless.

There are two points we must look at here in defining who can manage us. 1) We are a club with limited budget and 2) managerial statistics. 1) we have a limited budget with limited resources. In my opinion the two best managers we have had that could work within that environment were Steve Paterson and Terry Butcher. Both managers had the eye to catch good, youthful and experienced talent on the cheap! Paterson dipped into the Highland league and lower Scottish leagues, whilst Butcher obviously had connections with the English non league. Therefore our new manager needs to have experience of sourcing players, in the cheap that will be good enough to challenge for the Championship title. Also, both Pele and Butcher had years of experience in management before they came to ICT and they also had tactical awareness. Both points which Foran lacked severely in. Therefore in my opinion, of all the managers mentioned above, the two men that can tick all those boxes are Paul Hartley and Paul Sheerin. Hartley has won leagues 1 & 2 with Alloa and the championship with Dundee. He has the eye for resourcing young talent from Scotland and England and despite the last few months at Dundee has largely been a successful manager. Sheerin also has years of experience in coaching and management. He was Arbroath manager for two years and won league 2. Also his role with Aberdeen u20s means he knows the development league and could be influential in getting us loan deals of young Scottish talent. 2) managerial statistics I am a big fan of moneyball and I always like to look at the win ratio of a manager which is being touted for us. Excluding Foran who had a very poor win ratio, no surprise, our last two managers in Hughes and Butcher had a win ratio of 41.3% whilst at ICT. Hughes has a career win ratio of 39.7% and Butcher has a career win ratio of 35.03% Now I must add that it is very rare at our level to find a manager who has a win ratio of more than 50%. Therefore realistically anything between 35 - 45% is what we are looking for. Of the managers mentioned above the most..... Hartley has a career win ratio of 41.3%. A massive YES from me Sheerin - 38.97% whilst at Abroath (I can't find his record at Aberdeen u20s) again a Yes from me. Danny Lennon - 31.37%. It was 27% at St Mirren which is only 3% more than Foran. So it's a resounding NO from me I cannot find statistics for Paul Telfer. Since being rejected by us, he still has not have been given a management role and therefore it rings warning bells for me. It's a No Gus MacPherson - 35% puts him within the threshold but I'm not so sure tbh. His St Mirren side were known for Brutish, long ball football. It's a no Therefore we can see Paul Hartley is the resounding winner in points 1 & 2 and the fact he is available at the moment I hope we atleast try and speak to him. He is my firm favourite and I believe he could be a resounding success for ICT. Also Paul Sheerin I believe has the ability to step into the position although he has only managed at league 1&2 and development league level. Therefore it might be wise to appoint a DoF if he were to be in the frame for the post.

I would rather have Bamber Gascoigne !

John Terry want to get into management , could be a player manager LOL only joking. What is the situation with Malpas , I think he could be a good number 2 as he already proved with Butcher, and Strange the team performed better after he came back. Need to get rid of Rice if he is still here, but as for the Manager I don't know hopefully someone with experience

Its a whos-who of nightmares listed here - missed off Walter, Jocky Scott and fat s-Ally just to make sure all the nightmare bingo card was completed

Having been an RF critic, its a sad situation and being honest I had started to accept his staying. Reality is he should have left when we lost 3-0 away to Hamilton in that bottom of the table clash and we were rotten, the last few games this season showed the team can play and fight. With the experience from this season I think RF would have learned a lot and with the right support could have taken us back up. Leaving or sacking now is just pointless - yes we can bring in a new man and new ideas for next year but we are in a position where there is potential free or contract expiring players who we should be looking at and trying to sign, instead we are now after a manager and will be on the back foot to build for next year with possible targets being missed and worst case signed by direct opponents. . I'm sure most will disagree and be happy he has gone but its yet another poor timed and handled situation by the club for me.

Bottom line Is this was the only sensible decision going forward. Have to separate Foran the player from Foran the manager. As a player was everything you want, quite the opposite as manager. Lessons to be learned all round, but we have to move on in an upward manner. Unfortunately due to mismanagement at both Board level and Management of football side, a lot of people's jobs are at risk.

Goodness me, can people stop suggesting that he walked, or might not want compensation, just days after he stated that he was determined to carry on and bring us back up!

A great shame for Richie who will, without doubt, always be fondly remembered by ICT fans for the stalwart work and commitment he showed as a player but it clearly wasn't working out as manager and was showing no sign of doing so, so it was the right decision albeit a sad and difficult one. Congratulations to the new regime for having the courage to take this decision rather continuing with the damaging uncertainty and disunity. Now that the decision has been made can we please all reunite and get fully behind the new management team whoever they may be. As far as Richie is concerned, if he has walked then credit to him and shows him to be the man we thought he was rather than the man he was risking becoming. Sincere and heartfelt good wishes to him and his young family whatever the future may hold for them. Let the next chapter in our short but glorious story begin.

I wouldn't have minded if the club had offered him another post within the club, to be honest.

Genuinely feel sorry for him. I was really hoping it was going to work at the start of the season but it just hasn't, at all. Will we ever have another manager that loves the club and the area as much as he does? I doubt it.

Always gave his all as a player, scored some of my favourite Caley thistle goals, sorry his season in charge went the way it did, good luck Richie

Pretty sad for him that it didnt work out. Was totally on board with his appointment and so wanted it to work. And its not as if i expected miracles....maybe a run in the cups and a 6th - 10th place finnish would have been enuff for me. But alas, it wasnt to be. Wonder where that leaves Richie now. I do feel we had a man with the club and the area deep in his heart.

The sad thing is that it isn't even unexpected. The club's become a basketcase on and off the pitch. The quick fix and lack of foresight for the way ahead has caught up with us.

Today, May 28, Lonsano Doumbouya scored SKN St Polten's goal in a 2-1 defeat at Rapid Vienna, in the Austrian Bundesliga.

27 May 2017 Scottish Cup Final S Armstrong (Celtic 2 - Aberdeen 1) J Hayes (Celtic 2 - Aberdeen 1)

Yet another IHE stooge on the board.

I missed the North of Scotland cup final last week when Gavin Morrison scored one of Brora's goals in a 4-1 win over Fort William.