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Mikey Diamond - please look after this fine young man

You do release buying a striker isn't like buying a tin of beans at the supermarket. We have a small budget and struggle to attract players. A tin of beans full of juice and no beans is no use, may as well keep ur money til you find the a quality Heinz tin which has a dent but you have found behind all the other white beans. I don't even like beans. Should have used tuna as an example. I like tuna

Other shoppers with similar budgets manage to acquire a couple of tins of beans but then again they don't fill their trolleys with a dozen cans of spaghetti hoops in the way we do....

I'm afraid that's bye bye to top six and this is now a relegation battle. Sadly, this has been a train wreck waiting to happen: you cannot go into a season with no strikers and no retention policy. Flu, injuries and red cards happen and you need more than just a team of 11, most of whom are midfielders! A draw would have been acceptable, given the circumstances, but a loss, with a stack of suspensions around the corner could be catastrophic. Hamilton on Saturday is now an absolute must win and we'll barely be able to field a team. Where's the entertainment????????

Can't believe Hughes saying we have no penetration, it's his players, his selection, his tactics. We have had no penetration all season and we are in big trouble now.

St Johnstone are absolutely garbage and if we fail to beat a team who have only won once in thirteen games then we are in big trouble. Mind you, we could not beat Hibs who had lost their last three Championship games. We will be looking over our shoulders at this rate.

Placed in a "new topic" due to indolence and memory impairment of a certain ageing administrator Didn’t we have a lovely time the day we went to St Jones Town ? Well the answer is a bit of a yes and a no. The stadium itself and the facilities are above average, the stewarding is usually friendly but it is not in a location where train travel is the preference. If you are not travelling by the roads it is a nightmare. Social club and local hostelries are rather dull as well. But there again there is the football to entertain you. According to the stats we have won only 3 out of our 14 meetings in Perf. A worrying statistic is that we have only conjured up 10 goals in those 14 matches, an average of 0.71 per game. Although that sounds about right for this season !! We have had two draws and a loss since the Gary Warren winner in February 2014. We have also lost 4 points because of last minute lapses in two of those ties. Lets hope we keep our concentration tonight and not throw away any vital points. If we beat them by two clear goals we will leap frog them and back into the Top Six. With Hamilton at home coming up on Saturday four to six points would be a heaven sent and maybe ease the nerves for the Hibees cup replay. Lets hope we can go somewhere meeting our record 3-0 win in Perth and avoid the record 4-0 drubbing. Games at McDiarmid Park will last in the memory of many. The Challenge Cup win over Airdrie and the final defeat by Dundee – although the first 45 was possibly as good an ICT performance as there ever has been. My favourite game was the 2-1 win in August 2003 when we were treated to the David Bingham show plus a classic goal and celebration by Stevie Hislop. We had a remarkable away record in 2010 when we remained defeated for the whole year but went down 1-0 on 02/01/2011 in Perf. But of course the favourite St Jones Town memory will be of 15/05/2004 and the helicopter trophy arrival at the Dump after goals from Ritchie, Bingham and Wilson. Or perhaps fond memories of a defeat in the Alan Hercher Testimonial in 1997 when we had to loan them Fridgie for the night as they forgot to bring a keeper. Doubt if the same fate will befall Ryan Esson tonight. Lets all hope that we return to playing four at the back tonight and stop playing like obsessive crabs. It will be interesting to see if Horner and Mutumbo return after their super-sub performances. I do feel that Miles Storey needs to be rested. And will we finally see Meekings and Vincent back on the bench. Prediction – always seems to be low scoring affairs of late – only 6 goals in the last 4 matches. My heart says 1-0 to us but my head says 1-1. I would gladly take either of those.

Wed 9 Mar 2016 Gregory Tade scored the winner this afternoon, his first of 2016, in a 1-0 win for Steua Bucharest against our old friends, Astra in the Romanian League Cup.

Being good friends with Ross I know he would be laughing at us all being upset. He had a huge passion for Caley. I personally feel numb n sick still. His presence and fun will be missed in the stands and on buses. He was a family and friends man. And thoughts are with Claire Jennifer and their mum and dad. He may be gone but he will never be forgotten. Xx

On balance, I'd prefer our fellow Highlanders to win but only after a brutal and hard fought match going all the way to extra time and penalties on a heavy and stamina sapping pitch.

It's a worry. That was tortuous tonight. Heads are down. Mutumbo possibly the only chink of light this week so far. Can he provide the inspiration,ingenuity,trickery and craft to give us some penetration and a final product? I thought Liam did Ok tonight. He is not the most mobile but won lots in the air......no-one anywhere near any of his knock downs. Pretty shambolic otherwise.......all our players appear unable to play any one touch stuff. Everything is so static up top that every one receiving the ball takes at least two touches before visually checking where any movement may be. Our close control is pitiful. We were dispossessed time and time again in this manner. Come on Yogi. Lots to work on. And Mutumbo in for Vigurs on Saturday please

Another game to quickly forget. Shopping list for Yogi. Tin of tuna Beans Spagetti Hoops Magic Hat. Seems like forever since a home game, that place where we are unbeaten in not far off 4 months. Here's hoping all the youngsters attending on Saturday have a good day out #kidsday.

That just about nails it. It's all about ratings. Big teams, big stars, big stadiums, huge TV audiences, but ultimately boring games. I remember watching Dundee Utd v Roma on TV back in the 80's. European Cup semi-final (yes, Dundee Utd, I know, seems implausible now). They qualified for the European Cup because they won the league. They got to the semi-final simply because they were a good team. Nowadays the SPL winners don't even automatically qualify for the Champions League!

Time to get behind the team as supporters.The highs of last season were amazing. But staying in the top league is always the priority. Wage packet size, number of supporters we punch above our weight and knee jerk reactions to our current circumstances are negating the bigger picture. Can't believe in a footballing year which has given our club European football and a national trophy that we as supporters can be so fickle. Only a couple of weeks ago we beat the team being touted as potential league winners.This is when we should be digging deep and sticking together both on and off the field.

I find the incidence of flu among footballers quite alarmingly high while, in contrast, they never seem to get colds.

I'm really looking forward to Saturday's game now. No pressure on us to win whatsoever - whoop whoop !

Yup. Hard to carry any kind of threat when you don't have any out and out strikers available, and only one real striker on your books. There has to be a serious question over our our signing policy. Maybe, with injuries and suspensions, we will see Yogi play the team his signings suggest - a keeper and 10 midfielders.

He's the captain and one of our senior pros. He should be setting an example, not struggling because of a different partner in defence.

We got out of jail on Sunday after a thoroughly inept and tactically naïve performance for most of the match. Probably asking too much to be as lucky again. The frustrating thing is that we have the players to do so much better if only they were deployed properly.

The indiscipline was there to see on Sunday too. Sounds as though it was even worse tonight. Last thing we need is to have a bunch of suspensions over the last few games before the split, and of course after the split, which will almost certainly be a dog fight for us to to avoid 11th place. What has got into Warren? Is it that he is missing the stability of Meekings alongside him, and that he finds he is having too much to do on his own to hold the defence together, causing frustration with consequential moments of madness? Sooner he sorts himself out the better.

I didn't know Ross either, but I recognise him from photos because he was a big presence not only at the stadium but also around Inverness with all his interests and fund raising activities. I hear he was highly thought of at work too. His family must feel so proud of him, because he really was one of these rare people who managed to pack a long lifetimes worth of living into his short life. He will be missed by so many. Rest in Peace Ross.

HT 0-0 FT 0-0 Tansey MacLean 14

Hi MrCaleyjag, I understand the frustrations of missing out on these fixtures. They are not a regular occurrence as there are no mid-weeks fixtures in the calendar for these divisions. The mid-weeks only occur every so often when the postponed games are rearranged. Sometimes these rearranged fixtures can result in six or more games and it is only in these cases that I run the Competition in mid-week. I asked the question about these mid-weeks a while back to gauge opinion and most were in favour so I went with the majority. The minimum amount of games is six, so, as there were 9 last week and 8 this week I ran the contest to make up for the missing postponed weeks. I am aware that not all competitors read the rules but it does state within them that we have to look out for them..."Postponed matches very often result in Mid-Week fixtures later on in the Season. The NAPS Competition can sometimes be run when there are enough matches – you will need to look out for these." In an effort to avoid folk missing out I attempted to send a PM via CTO to advise all players but I'm not sure if this was received as there have been site issues lately. As it has turned out there were no winners in week 28A so we've all lost 10 points :-( I sincerely hope that you continue to enjoy and play the NAPS. Thanks for playing Gringo

That's an interesting summary, FoolPhysio. We took 7,000 - 8,000 supporters to the League Cup final, suggesting it's anything but a 'wee' cup. We don't mobilise that sort of support for nothing-games! At the time, it was our first major final - County had been in the Scottish Cup final v Dundee United, but in the build-up, there was absolutely no reference to us only being in the 'wee' final. Any distinction was simply labelled, 'our final' and 'their final'. You've either got a very short memory or are feeling a tad bitter that County have a 'major' (your words) cup final at the weekend.... Thanks to the wonders of search-engines, here's a post from you, word-for-word following our semi-final win against Hearts - and let's not forget, this was after 'just' the semi-final of the "meh" cup! 2nd Feb 2014 Brilliant, simply brilliant. Only the final between us and our first major tournament trophy. And am I pleased that I wasn't the only one with tears in my eyes and a lump in the throat immediately afterwards!

Polworth may not be available tonight. Apparantly he has an affliction known as elephantearism brought about by copious amounts of managerial love and affection.

After Sunday, I think Mutumbo deserves a start. I'd start him instead of Vigurs, but play 4/4/2 with Mutumbo up front with Storey.

Not forgetting, of course, our other 'ex' at Barnsley, Sam Winnall. He has been an even more prolific scorer, and has just been nominated for the League 1 Fans Player of the Month, for the second month running. What would we give for either of them to be back here now?

Is that necessarily true? Sadly, the Historical Kits website doesn't give any information for the first five years, but seemingly between 1890 and 1894, they played in a rather fetching outfit of brown and white stripes and blue long shorts. This was then followed by six years of red and black pinstripes before they changed again to blue and white stripes and then a rather ICT-esque red and blue striped jersey. From then on they seemed to settle on red and black. Interesting to note though, that while most fans nowadays consider Thistle to be red and black stripes, it wasn't always like that with predominantly red and occasionally black kits throughout the years. One or two that caught my eye was red and black Blackburn style half and half kit in 1950 and the very smart 1969, black with red sleeves jersey. I also noted that they played in a Sunderland-esque red and white stripes for a while in the late seventies as well. The same site also reveals that while Caley did play in blue from the very start, it was originally a far lighter shade. It also seems to show that the last Caley kit had more red in it than the first ICT kit!

You forgot to add in a few injuries

Don't really care about who wins, it's just the wee cup anyway

As usual, CB's arguments are at least half a century out of date and wholly irrelevant to the present day.

So sad to hear of Ross' passing this week. I was very surprised as I seen him at Dens park just last weekend. I only knew of him by name and face but you could tell he was a huge Caley Thistle supporter and well liked within the Caley community. Yesterday was fantastic by our fans with the minutes applause for him. My fondest memory of Ross certainly would have been the game against Rangers before the Scottish independence and Ross stood up against their fans with a 'Yes' Sign for majority of the game.

We know what we are we know what we are a f****** shambles we know what we are

A 'wee' Cup that we were gutted not to win at Parkhead a couple of seasons ago...

Storey had the flu before the Hibs game and Mutumbo fell foul as he was outside with no shorts on. Hughes Out ?

This is what happens when you take donkeys to a horse race...

More a case of lions led by a donkey.....

What a good shout by Caley Mad in Berks. Warren struggling without Meekings.

Could have happened on Sunday. Warren is the most indisciplined eejit we have had fer years. Take away the captains role asap.

Thank you Gary Warren