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If you leave out scoring goals and preventing the opposition from scoring goals we are actually in pretty good shape. Sadly this is what football is based on. We are a stale team, we've relied on the core of Warren-Meekings then Tansey-Draper for too long and haven't got enough depth to deal with injuries or loss of form. We are now reaping that, considering that Warren and Meekings have been poor,as has Tansey. Draper has maintained his form the best, although this has meant he has to play further up to offer attackign threat, rather than focusing on the middle of park and dominating there, which is capable of doing. Defensively our organisation is terrible and for some reason we are having to play an error-prone goalkeeper who is carrying an injury. Going forward we must have the least level of threat that I've seen from us in years. Our three strikers are two big targets (Doumbaya and Fisher), one of whom works hard and the other had a short purple patch, and a total bust in Boden. When you go further back to our '3' we aren't threatneing at all. We seem to throw players onto the pitch and stand back waiting for the 'TA-DAH' and them winning. "Lets play Doran, he's a good player....". The team doesn't have a plan, we don't seem to know what to do and we are slow and passive. Part of that is the central role given to Vigurs, who slows the play down and lacks urgency. I understand why we play him, he's got talent and is excellent from set pieces but the way he influences the rest of our play isn't good enough and is possibly negative. Around him we launch in players here and there, again no concept of how to beat the opposition. Stick in Mulreany, he's fast. Put on Polworth, he can score goals. Give Doran or King a try or Larnell Cole or whoever. It's the tombola of mediocrity and it needs to stop. Say what you like about Roy McGregor, he knows that it's very difficult to run a full time football team outside the top flight in Scotland so when County look like they are in trouble he makes sure hsi team stays up. We are going to downsize our way into being the next St Mirren or Dunfermline, both clubs who were established in the top flight but have busted out. I don't have much confidence in us managing to change the squad in the window either, maybe this guy we've signed from the Leinester Mens Sunday League (corner flag and goalnets cost extra) will shoot us to safety.

Absolutely agree. Concerning that some fans think that 'a season in the Championship would be a good thing' (or something along those lines). It would be disastrous. We have to stay in the Premiership. It may be dull but in Scottish Football it is the only place to be.

Obviously County aren't sustainable and I'm not saying that they are anything for us to follow. The point is that relegation could be catastrophic for us and we need to be utterly, completely focused on stopping it.

Greeny just for this phrase, which I think would be an excellent choice of under-badge motto on next season's strip.

I'm still wondering how sacking a media team, largely comprised of volunteers, will do anything to alleviate problems on the pitch. Or indeed spark new ideas and investment. It's all very easy to call for change when you're not the one who is willing to implement it. It's not too dissimilar to folk who never vote but complain about the government. We don't have a large fan base, and quite frankly never have. It ebbs up and down the 3000 mark but even when we were finishing high in the top 6 a few years running there were hardly significant increases. The fans just aren't there. They cannot be magically produced and put in the stands every Saturday. So we have to deal with the fact that with a low fan base we will always have little to work with in a budgetary sense. As for investment, I really can't see where that's going to come from. How many clubs would be desperate for a rich benefactor to come in and take them to new heights. Some have got lucky, Man City and Chelsea, neither team would have come close to league titles otherwise. Most others have not, Blackburn, Leeds, and in Scotland, Hearts, Dundee and Rangers have all come unstuck when seemingly rich owners have come in with promise galore and then seen all fall apart around them. I'd rather a board who run a steady ship with a limited budget who try their best to encourage a community atmosphere even if it doesn't always work perfectly. The main mistake I see them having made this season is an influx of overly long contracts, the manager included. I don't think it's necessarily productive in terms of on field performance. As has been mentioned we are, in reality, a feeder club, and do best when giving players a platform to showcase themselves. Some will stay, others will move on, leaving with them good memories in many cases. In the short term we need a few new faces in January, over the medium term we'll need to rebuild. Many stars have left, Tansey and Meekings will do also, whilst Warren and Raven are probably nearing the end of their ict careers. Off the field more could be done to attract further sponsorship but short of an as of yet mystery benefactor there will be no influx to the coffers.

Get the feeling Foran might jack soon if things don't start improving but I hope he doesn't, as everyone keeps saying he has the spine of a good team it's just about getting them to perform. I am sticking behind the manager as it's lack of cash that's the real problem, something that's not going to be resolved unfortunately :/

We should do it before 21 st January!

Chris's 2nd post says just that. God forbid anyone have a wee joke on here.

About time somebody apologised to Dougal. Good to see CB being rightly chastised. The one thing that Foran is NOT is a jacker. He will fight it out. Lets hope that his predicament and precarious position drives the players to rally to the cause.

There are no missing thousands we have a core support of around 3500 k which is diminishing rapidly due to the product on the park, getting that product right will get them back through the gates, football fans are very fickle and that relates to all fans of every club not just ICT What really hurts the club is when sections of the support get vilified by the local press, a few weeks ago I read a most unpleasant article attacking our very own young team A deliberate attempt to create division among the support and to make these young lads feel unwelcome, after all the only way this club is to gain support is to encourage youth not discourage them I actually feel very sorry for Foran he was the boards cheap option and he has been thrown in at the deep end with little to no funds available, you only have to look at his physical appearance to see the stress he's been put under, he looks gaunt to me in some of his interviews of late and the fact that he hasn't shaved for months is evidence Dougal

The next logical question in what could be a very long, drawn out exchange would appear to be "And where is that suddenly going to come from?" But to cut a long exchange short, I would imagine you would propose some means of deriving more cash from tickets, merchandise and the centenary club and also wealthy individuals gifting the club money in order to subsidise what are otherwise fundamentally loss making activities. In the first category, I am in little doubt that the Board has already been doing all within its power to maximise these and other sources of earned income. I'm just not sure where the magic wand is going to come from suddenly to create hike in this. The market has probably already been drawn upon to the maximum extent possible. And we've visited the latter case already. The expectation that wealthy individuals will or should subsidise football activities from their own funds simply is not a reasonable one and would not happen in any other line of business. But still, this does happen in football, although such arrangements are positively Faustian. Principally they only last for as long as the benefactor is prepared to keep throwing money at the situation and when that dries up, the consequences are devastating. I need only mention Gretna, Rangers and Nairn County for starters. But yet, to date, Caley Thistle's fundamentally loss making status over the years has indeed been alleviated at some points in this way. These include interventions by Ian Fraser, Tullochs and also the six figure sum donated more recently by the Muirfield Mills group. One other solvency measure has been the sale of the Social Club. However you always get back to the situation the club is again at. The overwhelming reason, as is the case across the game, is that the player market is so crazily inflated (a process encouraged by large donations) that wages are hugely out of proportion with their recipients' true market value. That is the absolutely fundamental anomaly of professional football.... the elephant in the dressing room. So what do you do? Cut the wage bill to balance the books? The system then responds by leaving you only with players who will ensure a fall down the leagues and further reductions in earnings. Cut ticket prices to get more people into your ground? The system then responds with an insufficiently elastic demand which at best means no increase in ticket revenues but more likely a decrease, so again you are worse off. It's a bit like the Battle of the Atlantic during WW2. There's a big area in the middle which your defence forces can't reach rom either side and ICT, despite the Board's best endeavours, is looking right into it at the moment.

Maybe he's coming in to take over the Media Team!!!

I suspect Boden will have to leave ICT to get a regular start somewhere else. He is by no means the only striker who, some would say, have not been given a real chance to shine with us. The prime example, back in 2012, was Sam Winnall, who only got two or three starts, when on loan with us in Butcher's time. As soon as he returned to England he became a regular scorer with Scunthorpe, and then, for the past couple of seasons, a prolific scorer with Barnsley, in both the English 1st division, and Championship. So he clearly had talent which Butcher did not see. I doubt if Boden is in that class, and I doubt we will find out while he is still with us.

Agree entirely with the criticism in Rice - his odd appointment by Hughes amid Latapy's unexplained departure, coincided with a drop in form which has never really recovered. I doubt Richie had any choice in his assistant - it came with the package and was non-negotiable for financial reasons. So, we are stuck with him until his contract expires.

Not annoyed in the slightest it only reinforces to me what a sad individual you are Admitting that you only use your column to attack certain groups of fans is hardly professional is it, but then again don't think anyone would expect anything less I've always found the fact that a self acclaimed athletics expert is the voice of north football highly amusing, pretty ironic when you know absolutely diddly squat about the game or supporters Dougal

I am on the imperative we stay up side, relegation, would be disastrous. I believe Richie can keep the Club up but he is going to need all the support ;he can get. I said at the outset of his ' reign' that we would have to keep cool heads and that there would be hard times ahead, well these hard times are here now so get your cool heads on, give the Team all the backing you can, this includes the board they are there to ensure the club prospers in every sense of the word. It is now all down to the players management and supporters Whatever it takes, even if it is a spell in debt this the time to act, we must not go down.

Heard we've given Dean Ebbe the log-in for the club MySpace account, depending how he develops there he'll move up to Facebool then Instagram, then Twitter. Building for the future. #Believe #Achieve #Retrieve

Surely this guy will be added to the development squad and not thrown straight into the first team or will he? Having said that he might be the ideal striker to gun down Elgin as he plays at a similar level to them currently You got to wonder what exactly is the clubs scouting policy though when they are looking at these levels in foreign countries, ok you might get the odd gem but I can't see many players playing at that level making the step up successfully Regardless he's a young player and I for one wish him the best and welcome him to ICT Dougal

"So called fans" Not cool, Dougal ... people who pay good money to support the team they love at home/away and who really care about its well-being are entitled to an opinion politely made ... otherwise what is the point of a forum? Let's all be happy clappers rain or shine, premiership or league 2 right?

I think maybe a few folk are jumping the gun. Like a lot of our players I suspect he's just happy to be home for a wee bit of a break.

2 Jan Rory McAllister gets us underway in 2017, with the only goal in a 1-0 win for Peterhead, at Brechin.

As far as I know the date, time and prices have been agreed by the clubs and the info sent to the SFA. What we were waiting on was sign off on the match info from the SFA (should be a formality) and information on how many tickets we were getting, where we'd be housed etc....this will determine the need for priority period, how many tickets are sold per person etc. It's possible that info has come in/been squared up over the festive period. If so then I'll hopefully get it to put out as soon as people get back to work in the next couple of days.

Doofer's Dad's thoughtful summing up says it all. That's a great post. The Board will not sack Richie for a variety of reasons. e.g. promises, pride, low Bank account, high-priced but unpredictable other Managers who could in any event just turn out to be a real liability anyway.. But I would not be surprised if he resigns at a future date just to allow everyone else to save face if things get worse and worse. If the team is relegated the crowds will surely still come if they continue to get better and keep on working hard? He's a decent lad is Richie and he's had very bad luck as well including character-less referees who don't feel the necessity to award penalties to ICT when blatant hand balls in the box occur with some regularity. If these penalties (as per the rules) had been given with alacrity where would we be now? That tells me that the High Head Yins don't particularly care for the unpredictable and sometimes very hard working and brilliant ICT taking trophies and high league positions away from the Terrible Twins and other teams. Sorry, but the deck does appear to be stacked against the very dangerous and exciting ICT. Particularly after the Scottish Cup win so that now people are always looking over their shoulder wondering what the fabled ICT will do next? The wee team frae the Hielans are now so unpredictable with their dogged persistence and often great football that the pundits don't know what to expect and keep looking over their shoulder expecting anything to happen these days. I have accessed the SPL site daily for years and I sense this strongly. We have earned their respect AND a degree of surprised affection that we should capitalise on too. We now have to explode out of the rut of near despair and get on with it and fight for redemption without a backward glance. But, if the underdog falters and falls down at any point then he will also be kicked! Time for Richie to harangue the troops, excite them and inspire them. The team has to grit their teeth and work harder. The Manager must forget relegation and work harder in the face of adversity. The Board must show faith in them and remind them of it repeatedly. And, last but by no means least, the fans musty continue to show faith in them and show up as well to put their money in the till.

The first quoted passage pretty well summarises the case for what ICT has done, both for itself and for Inverness as well. As such, this also largely represents any case FOR any suggestion that whether or not Inverness "deserves" the club IS a relevant consideration. There's no doubt that ICT has played a major role in highlighting this city and that's before you take into account questions of direct economic impact, including the road opening up the Harbour. In the second passage, is there perhaps a hint here of the proposition that football should be exempt from the usual laws of economics, marketing, supply and demand? The club is there, it's difficult to conceive of anyone who doesn't know that, its many achievements and its ongoing life are well publicly documented. This has resulted, over the last dozen years, in crowds which started at an average ballpark of 4000 but which are now descending towards 3000. That clearly demonstrates the current demand for the product on the basis of how it is marketed and the huge number of factors which will determine whether people feel it is worth the time and expense to attend. I do think that one significant factor is that our quite sparsely populated and remote area may be finding it difficult to sustain two Premiership clubs in the longer term. I don't quite buy into the scenario that Ross County are doing better than ICT by drawing similar crowds from a less well populated area. (They may or may not be marketing their product better but that's a different issue.) I think Inverness is a big factor here in what are two largely overlapping catchment areas. To a lot of people who live in Inverness, including some Invernessians (if you see the distinction) there's not the same partisan divide as many perceive. I therefore look on this as two rival clubs competing for what is significantly a common market - which isn't big enough to sustain them both. However Ross County are to some extent insulated from some of the economic realities by a benefactor, although that statement shouldn't evoke any outbursts of self-righteousness from ICT fans. After all, ICT was more or less bust in 1999 and six years later was playing SPL football in an SPL compliant stadium, largely thanks to various interventions from Tulloch. For me the emerging picture, in a market place where TV and other factors are a significant deterrent to attendance, is that the Inner Moray Firth is struggling to sustain two Premiership clubs in the longer term. Unfortunately, the first historical analogy which comes to mind is that of the USA winning the Cold War because its much greater spending power helped it to strangle the Soviet Union.

I'm not the one calling for "investment", by which I think you probably mean what this term normally seems to mean in football - people with money donating large amounts of it to football clubs in order to subsidise their loss making activities, principally due to paying players sums way above their realistic market value. At some grounds you really do need to think hard about how much of the ticket price is in effect subsidised in this way.

I don't think that even the most ardent conspiracy theorist could put that down to the ICT Board which was the creation rather than the creator of the scenario in question.

Delighted you were annoyed Dougal, and that you rise to the bait as beautifully as the most rabid of Rangers fans do when it's their turn!

Greg Tansey extends his contract to May 2017. Happy New Year

How about, instead of deriding the league he played in, we give the boy a chance ?

Thank you Kingsmills. I felt entitled/obliged to respond once and briefly to Dougal's initial red herring but would really much prefer to examine the role and performance of the ICT Board, not only at the moment but on an ongoing basis across several years. Just as I warmly endorsed an earlier post from PerfICT, I would similarly want to commend the recent injection of realism from iamthecaptain1.