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Yet again we're hamstrung by our manager and his bizarre team selections and mentality. He just about got it right by the end. The one saving grace is that Hamilton look really poor. They're considerably worse than every team we've played in the Championship and they are there for the taking. We need to be proactive on Saturday. Starts needed for Lawal, Pepple, Carragher and either Macgregor/Macallister depending on fitness.

Would not argue with the first bit. Definitely needed in the Premiership but once elsewhere in the league structure then it's debatable IMHO. For me it's all about added value. I have no idea what the current wage is, but if we have a CEO who for sake of argument is costing £100K in wages and generating additional extra costs in hotel bills or car hire or anything else because he/she is not locally based, then a cost/benefit analysis is warranted. If that person brings in more than their cost and can help others to work more efficiently, and therefore more cost effectively, promote the club in a positive light and engage with fans, then that to me justifies the position regardless of what we might think of the person. If, however, the plans to generate sustainable revenue never materialise, or they alienate others in the organisation due to autocratic methods, cause lower efficiency because of this, ignore local and fan relationships that took nigh on 30 years to develop and establish, and make no overt contribution to the bottom line then its a no-brainer! We don't need the latter. I have my own opinion on this regarding our current CEO, but I can't back that up with hard data showing which camp he falls in. I want him to be in the first one because that would be a revenue generating situation and god knows we need that right now, but with high profile failures like the concert and the ongoing saga of the battery farm, and numerous examples of lack of engagement with individual fans or groups, my fear is that is not the case. We have had only 3 official CEOs I believe. MS, YC, and SG. That speaks volumes if we look at their records and fan opinion on each of their tenures. Prior to that we had a team manager and a stadium manager reporting to the board. John Sutherland may not have had the title but was a defacto CEO in my opinion, and was the epitome of what was needed at the time. I have no idea about his leadership style, but he ran the stadium, managed the staff, also did security and other matchday duties so wore many hats over the course of a typical week. Hospitality was left to those who could sell it, similarly with marketing, and other areas. There are also plenty of other people around the club who do, or have, worn many hats over the years - mostly successfully, with only the odd exception. Even though some of the faces change from time to time, we have always had a core of good people. We have been lucky in the past with directors or chairmen being local and putting in - in some cases - more hours at ICT than they did in their own companies. If we have competent businesspeople on our board, then should the unthinkable happen and we drop to the 3rd tier, I personally would be hoping some of them would step up to get us back on track organisationally, thus reducing the need for some senior personnel who may be drawing a wage we simply can't afford now and definitely not in the lower tier. We will still need the day-to-day staff that make the place tick over and do so much of the heavy lifting, but we may not need a CEO or any other 'executive' roles. If the existing staff don't have capacity to take on additional duties if we were to drop down, then supplement (not replace - that would be foolish) the existing day-to-day staff with volunteers as we did in past. However, for that, you do have to communicate, engage, build trust, and not look down your nose at them as if you stepped in horse***t or are suspicious as to why they volunteered.

If Gilmour had to be subbed at half time, you have to wonder why he started. Cannot understand why Longstaff was preferred to Lawal. Longstaff certainly gives his all, but unfortunately there is never any end product. Lawal was the player who was making things happen today. Pepple also looked good when he finally came on. His goal was very well taken but he was causing the defence a lot of problems apart from that. I've no idea why Billy is played so deep. He is tidy enough in keeping possession but he's a goal scorer who isn't going to score from the halfway line. He'll score goals if played alongside Pepple though. We can't afford the 2nd leg to go to pens and therefore we need to score 2 goals more than Hamilton on Saturday. So let's start with the players who are most likely to create and score the goals.

We were much better in the second half. Basically we started the match with the wrong line up, and the wrong manager. Lawal has been our best player in recent weeks yet we start Gilmour who’s been out for months. Samuel has done nothing for months except try hard and run a lot, whereas Pepple has a physical presence and is a handful for defences. Both need to start on Saturday.

People will obviously question the keeper, but it started because we gave the ball away very cheaply in midfield. Big stroke of luck for Hamilton that the shot somehow went in. About time we got some good fortune like that.

Well firstly it’s usually to generate more money than you’re taking out of the club on wages . It’s clearly been disaster after disaster and looking like much more on the horizon .

If even a fraction of the chat about the state of our finances is true then we'll be needing every penny to pay wages at the end of the month.

We're still trying to walk the ball into the net. Someone needs to have the balls to shoot!

I'd expect concerts to make money and not rip off local businesses. I'd expect not to give contract extensions to crap managers then replace them 6 games later with another incompetent manager with an name just to boost his ego. I'd expect not treating fan groups with utter contempt. I'd expect not launching BS roof building schemes then taking money and quietly cancelling it. I'd expect not bringing us to the brink of part time football, relegation or worse. I wouldn't be surprised if he has no KPIs at all. I think Morrison just employed him and let him do whatever he wants.

He’s pretty much been a midfielder recently but presumably he is doing what he is instructed to do by the manager.

Feels like this tie is a Sliding Doors moment for the club. Win it and there is hope that, with a decent summer's recruitment and resolution of the club's financial crisis, we might start heading in the right direction again. The potential consequences of losing don't bear thinking about. I don't see us bouncing back quickly like Dunfermline or Partick did after recent relegations, and I can't see us surviving several years in League One like Falkirk have.

A CEO that could actually do the job would help . Too much self interest in the present one . And he wonders why he is so unpopular

OK I'm happy to start replies with a question. Does a club of our size need a full time CEO ? Personally would like someone who has better communication skills and local contacts and someone who recognises the value of fans

While I get peoples dislike for SG being at the club (and I am no fanboy either), statements like this keep being made. However, nobody ever substantiates it with the costs involved or define the club performance metrics set out by the board and whether he has delivered or otherwise (and if this is considered to represent value). It would also be interesting for fans to state what their expectations for SG performance would be?

Hamilton giving their season ticket holders half price entry tomorrow night. Really disappointed our club not offering something similar on Saturday. Win or lose this playoff tie, huge changes are required on and off the park in my opinion to prevent more fans becoming increasingly disillusioned to the point they stop going altogether. I understand the focus right now has to be on Championship survival but here’s hoping there are major changes coming in the summer regardless of what league we are in next year.

Ffs play Billy in the position he should be in or don’t play him . Surely Ferguson should know by now his best position and deep it is NOT

That’s as this is the thread for Saturday’s game….

Samuel is a Graham Bayne type forward insomuch as he makes defenders work hard and forces errors but he'll not be a prolific scorer. What he needs is someone alongside to mop up and stick the ball in the net which is why it's crazy that Billy has been played so deep.

Lawal and Pepple on from the start on Saturday. Equalise - at least - by half-time. Then there is everything to play for.

We need to approach Saturday the way we’ve played the second half. Hamilton are nothing special and are there for the taking. We can’t show them any respect.

Chants were at Ferguson and I read it more as being for taking Samuel off than Pepple on. Longstaff should have been the one hooked.

Were our fans chanting “you don’t know what you’re doing” at Ferguson because he was bringing Pepple on for Samuel? It was a change that was needed, Samuel offered nothing tonight, and has paid dividends instantly.

People with his first touch. We have the momentum, let’s get level!

Feel like I'm about to go against what everyone else thought with my take We've managed to get the ball into some decent spots and have forced a couple of saves, our biggest threat is down the left, when go right kerr too often has stopped and played back the way. McKay is not a 10 and I thought he was one of the worst offenders for slowing our attacks down. Feel the ref hasn't handled it well, and should have booked a Hamilton well before he did. Could argue we should have had a pen, same for Hamilton, and felt the second was a foul on Ridgers

We need to go 442, Get Longstaff away to feck, get Mcgregor or Lawal on to give some direct play. There's just no passion, Half of theses guys will be away Saturday night.

Even worse than feared. Everything is so slow, our midfield look like they're running in treacle. Nothing against Gilmour but he's barely half fit, I just can't fathom the decision to parachute him straight in after 3 months out. We need to see Lawal & Macgregor as Anderson is blowing too. This one is on the manager. It's been coming.

There are more goals in this game, I just hope some are for us.

He’s been played there most games. The summariser has it spot on about how we have lined up. The next goal is vital.

MV Loch Seaforth arriving in Ullapool 12/4/2024 and at Stornoway 15/4/2024...

Needs someone to run it, usually a chairman looks after most of the day to day - when he's locally based and has the knowledge of running a club to go with that. Unfortunately Morrison isn't and doesn't - which is why we have the CEO position.

I find myself more and more comparing ICT with Everton - which may not be a coincidence for evident reasons. Everton in true Dyche style concentrate on tentative defending and much of the play is side to side and backwards. Pinching a one goal win has become the norm. Lack of stimulation and entertainment is also a norm. Survival is the main aim. Everton have played most of the season with one man up front - often not an actual forward - but that person is usually a 6 footer and the only Plan B is the hoof from Pickford. But when you compare Samuel and McKay to Calvert-Lewin, Beto and Doucoure - well ?!! Everton also have the options of McNeil and Harrison. Thats why I would love to see Harper playing higher up and Lawal using his pace out wide.

Haven’t bought anything at the ground for a few years now. It was a cold, dark, midweek game my grandson wanted a hot chocolate. The person serving filled the cup with boiling hot water, dumped a spoon of hot chocolate powder into the cup and passed it to me. I asked if she was going to stir the powder in. She gave it a whirl and handed it back to me. I asked for a lid for the cup. She said there were none left. I said you can’t give that to an 8 year old. Do you want it or not she screeched at me. No was the answer handing it back. I buy my steak pies from butchers Hastie&dyce in the Victorian market. £1.95, best pie in town. Footie pies they are called.Then buy the sausage rolls from Greggs. Couple of the kids have allergies so I have to know what is in them.

Very sad for you to have seen first hand what we have really seen all season Dave! After the shyte of Doddsball we hoped for something refreshing, Something new and attack minded. Oh how we got let down.. big time, There was a glimmer when we had Wotherspoon ( what happened to him?) but we have endured turgid pysh in most games, I am optimistic most of the time and am hoping that we can play like we did against Raith( and not lose a late goal ). Maybe next time pop into the Innes and share misery Dave!

What’s free flowing goals and football?

I hate Hamilton and this isn't cheering me up. Still live in hope it'll all click with our team and before the season ends we will play total football and issue an absolute doing with free flowing goals and football.

Agreed with that and understand how kids want but the catering costs vs quality we offer is shocking. Personally I grudge buying anything at the stadium now given its so poor.

Where did it all go wrong? When a Premier league team in 2012 had the training facilities of a league 1 part time team . Our injuries and strains are a testament to a club that puts moving the ticket office at the stadium ahead of building a shower at Fort George. Why should any player choose caley thistle over any league 1 or championship side today when our record of destroying players careers and legs is there for anyone to see . Our league 1 facilities have an inevitable gravity that restricts our youngsters development and our first teams performance. How many league 1 and championship teams have worse facilities than caley . This is why Robertson was so focused on this.

Correct on all assumptions . my gesture of good will is GOING to the game. Buy the pies, juices, moams and take them to MacDonald’s after. They cost me a fortune. took three with me to the raith away game and I was £80 for the bus, match tickets, pies and stop at the Chinese chippy on way home. Don’t think I had much change out of £150 that day.( not moaning, honestly, great day out) would be a lot easier watching on alba. then I have to do it all again at Dingwall on the Sunday. Roll on the end of the season.

Could almost have written this myself. Despite a poorer support than us, and playing in a stadium which is probably even more soulless, and pretty much in the domain of the Ugly Sisters, as a newly promoted team they reached the playoffs. Rhys McCabe is an intelligent young manager whose star is on the rise. They have a well-defined style of play where they can pass it out from the back but then when it gets to the midfield, surprise surprise, it doesn't go backwards again and end up with the goalie. As opposed to us where Mark is then forced to kick long and it's now a 50/50, or 20/80 if it's Billy against some 6'5" centre back. They don't score too many goals but they have probably got more out of Toddy than we ever did, and have a bit of a spark in midfield with players like Frizzell. From the games against us plus watching the Friday games on telly, they're my team of the year in this division. They won a trophy too.

I don't think you can pinpoint an exact moment where it all went wrong but I think it's somewhere around 2012. We got relegated in 2009, maybe slightly unfortunately with a record points total at that time, and then we gave Butcher leeway to rebuild and he did a great job. He then built more and created the cup winning squad that Yogi inherited, the zenith of the club up to this point. However, during those years when we had regular SPL football, a manageable financial situation (easily recoverable losses, external investment, cup runs, Europe money, transfer fees, money for managers etc) what investments did we make off the park? What improvements were made to the infrastructure of the club, both in terms of facilities for the fans and players? None. We still train at Fort George as far as I can see, the ground hasn't been touched or improved in years, and is now starting to fall apart. We don't have any facilities at our ground like a proper bar or decent food or excellent hospitality. You can extend this to off the pitch too and this is one reason why I don't entirely blame Morrison and Gardiner for what's happened to the club. We generally operated OK in the top flight, the losses were coverable when they happened and some years we made money. However, we didn't do anything to generate off the pitch revenue, something that coudl safeguard the clubs future. Gardiner and Morrison have taken a lot of stick for the concerts and the battery farm but they've had to do this because there was nothing there before. We didn't even control the land that the stadium is on, IIRC, and were paying money to another company for it. Eventually every club of our size gets relegated and we completely failed to plan for that in any sense - on the pitch, financially, from a business standpoint. If people remember the summer after we went down it was chaos, we had three different Chairmen, we were releasing players via social media, putting our press releases every day (Twitter account liked porn - statement, Duncan Shearer released by text - statement). It was clear no-one know what to do and really no-one has known what to do since. Everything that's happened to the club since stems from that failure. The Chairman and the CEO are trying to do positive things but failing because they are hamstrung by issues out of their control as well as their own incompetence. In the meantime the club throws huge money on players and managers, makes massive losses but is at the same time massively penny pinching. Watching the Montrose game via their stream I recall the Covid season where we had one of the worst streaming offerings in the entire league. other clubs have kept streaming and probably make a trickle of cash from it but we huffily insisted ours was fine and now don't do it at all. The only way I can see this improving is if an outside party buys the club and is willing to invest proper money in it, which I can't see happening or the current backers underwrite another few million quid and we finally manage to claw our way out of the situation we are in, we flukily get a managerial appointment spot on. I can't see either happening to be honest - I fully expect to be relegated and to spend a few years in League One.

The commentators said Pepple went to the away fans to wind them up as they were making those chants. We need to learn from this for Saturday. The subs have made the difference.

I’m starting to see the benefits of the mind-numbingly unambitious and negative tactics we saw at Montrose.

Hamilton are an awful club who really bring nothing to the landscape of Scottish football - its bad enough irrelevances like Airdrie & Morton are in the Championship.