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I always remember a friend of mine telling me from last season that she seen one of our bigger names players at 4am absolutely blazing stumbling out of Maccy D's on a Saturday night, which might not seem so bad until you realise this was the week we had a midweek game away from home....I'll also mention it was last season before the possibly pivotal humping at Accies. Im not one who believes that players are not allowed to let their hair down, and eat and drink and be merry.....but getting into this type of state from personal experience usually requires about 2-3 days before feeling human again. I cannot imagine this player was in top form literally 3 days later for what would become a massive turning point down

I see High School alumna Ali Smith has just made the short list for the Man Booker prize. Remind me, what year was it that "The Caddy Rats" trilogy was nominated for the Mun Booker?

At the open night, did Robertson not say that if Raven and Fon Williams were still here after the transfer window shut, they would then become part of the squad and would be available for selection? He is using Raven, probably only because Seedorf is injured, but Fon Williams seems to be a totally different situation. It was reported he was injured, then he wasn't injured! I think it's time for the club to come out and tell us what the real situation is. When we bought our season tickets, the club said that they were going to keep the majority of the squad from last season and get us back up at the first time of asking, well that never happened, but if we are not going to play our best available 11, the questions need to be asked why not? I am all for giving the new manager and players time, but if there are any petty personal squabbles between players or coaches, they must be put aside for the benefit of the club.

FFS, Give this a rest, and concentrate how we can establish ourselves as a senior football club again. My first suggestion would be to have a decent goalkeeper. Sorry Mark, but I don't think you will make it for what we are trying to achieve!

The same year as The Boys From The Ferry and The Battle Of The Ferry were nominated for the Nobel Prize For Literature? (This could go on all night righ'eenaff? and it has nothing to do with the OP.... which in turn is a fishing expedition anyway.)

Bu..er all wrong with the Tech CB?

What's wrong with attending the high school? That's quite offensive. Why would you not single one of the other secondary schools in inverness, very poor attitude.

FFS, aye, let's send them to the Harriers, the Sneck's own failure factory for the toon's bourgeoisie, a wee jog roond Queen's Park while they ruminate over their Higher Physics homework.

I was at that game & we certainly played like they all had the hangover from hell...

With a disappointing start to the season, albeit probably inevitable with all the changes on and off the pitch, there are some issues causing concern to fans. We desperately want the club to succeed and, at the very least, challenge for promotion, but it would be helpful to understand some of the issues that are causing concern. We respect that some items must remain confidential until they can be disclosed, but fans would be reassured with feedback on: 1. The position with Owain Fon Williams and his likely involvement this season. 2. The implied criticism made by Ross County of the fitness levels of our players and our training regime, as quoted in the Press and Journal with reference to Ross Draper. 3. Possibly linked to the above, the run of injuries over the last two seasons. Hopefully you read this and can comment. Thank you.

Totally agree Kingsmills. The only implied criticism here is by yourself as I believe Jim McIntyre stated that his fitness was not at the level to play the type of game Ross County wish to play. Given County's recent results and their performance against rangers, maybe he is not the only player at that level

Dougal must be rubbing his hands at the thought of a thread reaching well into its second page after starting life on unsupported claims on Pie and Bovril about the alleged delivery to the ICT team bus of pizzas of unknown composition and hence also (given that many pizzas can be very wholesome) of unknown implications for health. However one or two interesting issues have been raised, including some of "sports science" in relation to football. Sports science is a very wide ranging discipline, embracing not only dietetics as prompted by the OP but also questions of general training, strength and conditioning, recovery, the effects of noxious and intoxicating substances, psychology and a good deal more. Compared with other sports, football is a relatively recent convert to some of these concepts, to the extent that they don't yet seem to be embraced universally by the game when maybe they should. Posters have also raised issues about professional sportspeople being meant to know what they should and shouldn't be doing, highly paid players going on the bash at various times and the likes of PSG being unlikely to behave "badly". These are all very valid observations... but they tend to pale into insignificance in the face of just two words - Wayne Rooney, or indeed Paul Gascoigne and not a few others. The norms adopted by many other sports, including those where there is no payment, are still very much "work in progress" in football. However there does seem to be a pretty deeply rooted "counter-culture" there which will take some time to dislodge. And allowing the likes of Rooney to get away with it, as he has so frequently done, is not going to hep that cause one iota.

A complete non-issue and tbh a bit pathetic really. What next ? Having a moan because a player is seen in a good mood in public after a defeat ? Absolute riddy.

And I wonder who or indeed which junk food companies, funded the research in question? If you are prepared to pay for the service, it's possible to get any results you want for "academic" research. The newspapers don't help either. Every day you'll find sensational copy about what will kill you and what will make you live to 100. Indeed you may well find that in different papers, or indeed in the same paper a respectable time apart, the same foodstuffs will do both. In any case, what is alleged to have been delivered to a team bus to eat on the way home isn't what will tend to aid recovery because that's too long post-match. The best expert advice is something with quickly absorbable sweet carbohydrate (ie not starchy stuff which is far slower) with a certain amount of protein content as well within 30 minutes of exercise, if it's been anaerobic, which football to a fair extent is. My own preferred items include jelly beans, jelly babies, milk shakes, Lucozade sport and "full fat" Irn Bru. But has this thread not progressed quite a distance from an extremely anecdotal OP from a renowned fisherman?

Tad harsh on Ridgers methinks. No chance whatsoever with their last goal. Is he being used as a scapegoat for the faults in this team? He was not aided and abetted in the least by our defence which was in a disorganised shambles , poor positioning, etc. Tackling was absent or chaotic with the St Mirren boys running rings round them to score at will. Caley were no match for these young lads who were determined, aggressive, confident, very fit and enthusiastic as heck. Wow! John Robertson should come completely clean on the OFW affair. Remaining silent is foolish and not right. Maybe Ridgers needs an emotional rest as much as anything. He seems to be athletic enough so maybe the Manager and Trainer need to give him more help!!! . How about a session or two with a goalie coach? Oh, I forgot, there is no money for that kind of thing probably. Better to just blame Ridgers instead I suppose?

Plus points - Polworth looks miles better as a number 10. Vigurs again played well. Trafford looks a tidy player, but needs to lose the man-handling side to his play as it's going to cause him bother. We played some good football at times. Negative points - Mark Ridgers is, quite simply, the worst goalkeeper we've ever had. He's worse than Les Fridge and Zibi Malkowski. Joe Chalmers is, quite simply, the worst left-back we've ever had. He's worse than Lionel Djebi-Zadi and probably Richie Byrne. Brad Mckay is very inconsistent. Sometimes he's reasonable, yesterday was not one of those days. Alex Cooper is garbage. A complete non-entity who I forgot was playing. Riccardo Calder starting showing some of the traits that he seemingly showed at Dundee. A talented player, but a bad attitude. He didn't look up for it yesterday. John Robertson got the tactics after we went behind all wrong. 3-2 and then 4-2 down and he continues for the rest of the game with Baird as the only striker and Cooper and Chalmers having absolute shockers, leaving Oakley, Mulraney and Tremarco on the bench.

I do think Ryan would do a better job but only marginally. I've been a great Ryan fan but he got a couple of chances last season and you could see he wasn't so agile. Ridgers' confidence must be absolutely shot, especially since the defence obviously have no faith in him never mind what the fans think.

Esson should be back in goal.

The Fon Williams situation is beyond ridiculous now and must be resolved. He had a poor season last season, but at least part of that can be attributed to playing through injury early on, and he would still be an upgrade on what we have now. Ridgers has made several dreadful blunders, his confidence must be shot, and the evidence on the pitch is that his teammates don't trust him. The fact that the defensive unit collectively looked so weak again yesterday is also a source of real concern for the next few games. Teams will come up against us knowing that if they throw everything at us going forward, we're likely to crack. Yesterday we conceded from a player allowed to go through one on one with the keeper, from a cross ball into a crowded penalty area, from a (superb) snap shot from distance, and from a player being allowed too much time and space on the edge of the penalty area: we look vulnerable in multiple areas, in other words. If we continue to ship goals like this, then it can surely only damage confidence and morale further, which in turn is likely to affect how we play as a team, and on current evidence we simply don't have enough going forward to compensate for our deficiencies in defence; this is not a Steve Paterson-vintage throw-in-three-score-seven ICT side. The shape did look better in the first half hour yesterday: as I noted against Brechin, Trafford's dogged work chasing everything and breaking up play at the base of midfield frees Vigurs and Polworth to play to their strengths, and yesterday Polworth in particular was excellent, our busiest and most potent attacking threat, despite missing a sitter when one-on-one with Craig Samson. Vigurs had some fine touches linking play too, and Baird worked hard again and deserved his goal. Calder quickly frustrated however - after looking lively early on, he seemed to get brushed off the ball too easily thereafter and seemed too ready to go down under very little contact - while Cooper simply disappeared about halfway through the first half; we offered next to nothing down the right. Hopefully St Mirren will be one of the strongest teams we will face this season, but the next two games must be seen as serious tests of how we match up in this league - pre-season, I'd have had Livingston and Dumbarton down as the most likely candidates to occupy two of the bottom three spots, with Brechin in the other. Neither has started particularly well, but both had decent results yesterday. Hopefully Tremarco will be fit enough to return to the starting line-up against Livvy - he's not going to solve our defensive problems, but he'll be a far more intimidating opponent than Chalmers, he'll hopefully be able to organise the defence a little better during play, and despite being primarily a defender, he'll probably still offer more threat on the left than we showed yesterday. Beyond that, our options still seem limited, and where we do seem to have a better one - i.e. Fon Williams - then we should use it.

So, we've lost to Falkirk, Dunfermline, DU and St Mirren so far this season....I know Falkirk was in the cup, but the point stands. These were the top competitors for honours this season and we've lost to the lot, sometimes heavily. I think we all have to wake up. This season is about rebuilding. OFW is a smokescreen- yes, he's tying up funds, but remind me when the transfer window closed and how many really good players are out there wanting to play for a club in turmoil? That horse bolted in July. We need to accept this is what we have and get some team spirit going with Board, players, manager and fans. It's time for siege mentality, fighting together and stop looking for scapegoats. If we don't, we'll be relegated.

Dougal and IHE 2 CB 0

too much pessimism. We are a completely different team now, and you have to accept that. So we are starting all over again. We have defensive problems, but Robbo, as he said in the interview, is well aware of that. However, there is some promise in other areas of the pitch. We will improve, but I don't think it is unrealistic to consider us a mid table side at the moment, with the possibility that we can build on that and move up over time. This is the beginning of a new project, our previous success is now history. But there is no reason that it won't be an exciting ride once again, given a bit of time. Look at the St Mirren comments, they are far more positive than our own doom mongers!

Sounds like one of these Rough Boys From The High School is getting all chippy about his long distant schooldays again It's so Freudian!