Leaderboard

Sadly we have already had some 6 pointers against Dundee, Partick and Hamilton. Given the lack of bottle and fight in the Hamilton game it suggest we don't have the characters to get out of this. I said in the Jan window those around us have gone the distance in relegation battles season after season and the players know how to deal with it - sadly like Hibs & DUtd recently we aren't used to being down there and the mentality of the players seems unable to step up so far - those clubs went down and I suspect we will too. Until everyone in the team such as Vigurs, Polly, Tansey, Cole all fight, track back and chase every ball like Draper, Tremarco & Brad do then we will have too many who aren't fighting together. There have been chances recently to grind out results but we haven't shown that mentality.

Simple assumption, that if we have a GK that is struggling for form through carrying an injury, we bring in another keeper or refrain from sending out the 2nd choice out on loan. Now that is really amazing. Also, as you seem unable to grasp the reason we are rooted to the foot of the table I have an unqualified theory .Maybe it's because we have only won 3 games and conceded nearly a half century of goals. That is not so amazing.

There have been some very critical remarks on a number of threads on this forum in the last day or two, so for what it's worth, here are a few thoughts in the context of the game on Saturday. Firstly, let's acknowledge that it was a superb performance by Celtic. For my money, that was the best performance I have seen against us by any team, ever, Their movement on and off the ball, the accuracy of their passing, the tight control on the first touch, the speed with which they closed us down, and their ruthlessness. They were also hugely disciplined at the back with Boyata and Sviatchenko not giving Mckay or Anier a sniff. And the fact that they can afford to put a player of Christie's ability out on loan to their nearest challenger illustrates just how far ahead of everyone else they are. We lost by 6 to an excellent team at the top of their game, but it wasn't as if Fon Williams had a lot to do except pick the ball out of the net - unlike Fox for County against Aberdeen! And what made the score so high was specific instances of poor defending. Fon Williams should certainly have done better for the 2nd goal and we clearly have a problem with that position. Whether he is carrying an injury or is just short of confidence, I don't know. But he did a great job for us last year and has not suddenly become a poor keeper. Injured or not, we need better cover for him than Esson can provide. But whilst OFW can be blamed for the 2nd goal, so can the defenders - and for Dembele's other two goals. He's the top striker in Scotland at the moment (and by some distance) but nobody was marking him for any of his 3 goals. With the sheer numbers Celtic attack with, including the quality of their 2 full backs, it is nigh on impossible to pick everyone up all the time - but you must pick up their main man. Dembele is clever how he drops back or wide and then just seems to drift into the right space at the right time, but everyone was watching the ball and nobody was watching him. That really needs to be addressed. There are some basic errors being made and just as defenders need to have confidence in their keeper, the keeper needs to have confidence in the defenders. Currently we are lacking the cohesion and confidence as a defensive unit as a whole. Having said that, there was a lot that was relatively positive about the performance. Folk have criticised some in the team for a lack of effort. Vigurs seems to have taken the brunt of this. I din't see any lack of effort from any of the players against Dundee and I saw none against Celtic. I think the message is perhaps getting through that unless players give 100% every game, then we will be going down. Richie needs to continue to impress this on his players, but unlike Celtic, he has little option in some positions if players slacken off. Meanwhile, we show real promise at the other end where competition is greater for places. We have scored more goals than all the 6 teams directly above us and whilst we managed very few efforts at goal on Saturday, that was testament to their defence rather than a reflection of our weakness. We did manage to get behind their defence and won no less than 7 corners. Not many teams have done that at Celtic this season. There's lessons to be learnt from Saturday. We are nearly a pretty good team but we absolutely must address our defensive frailties. Do that and we have the potential to go on a decent run. Fail to do that or fail to continue with the desire and commitment, and we will go down. The cup's gone and Foran's not going to be sacked. It's time to focus on the league. We rightly demand commitment from the players but it's also time for the fans to commit their support to the players.

We are more likely to sign or dig up Jimmy feckin Logan See you in Dumfries

Easy to say that with the benefit of hindsight. OFW had a very solid season last season, we only had the resources to keep one and, since there was nothing between them and there was a significant financial benefit in keeping Fon Williams that decision made sense. Nobody could foresee just how quickly and badly his form would drop this season.

May as well try Draper in goal, he's already played as forward, creative mid, defensive mid and centre back, let him complete the set and given the dodgy butter fingers displays recently he might not be any worse - can guarantee he'd be brave and put himself on the line to get crosses and make challenges. BTW I'm not being serious but on current form we have 2 of the worst keepers I remember for a long while whether that's due to constant changes in the back 4 and loss of confidence due to the amount of pressure being exposed all the time. Both are experienced pro's so need to step up if not its time to bring in youth.

Realistic Rationalisers

Think its pretty clear from the selections - no consistency to build on and if players are 'hiding' then whos fault is that but his - he picks them and its his job to motivate them. If you look over our team sheets this season the defence constantly switches in personnel, we swap about attack players and sometimes just play people out of position, while injuries may contribute this isn't always the case - guys play one wk, dropped to the bench the next then back again. Its the actions of a manager desperate for something to 'click' for some miracle to happen with a random combination - sorry but if you remove yourself from being a staunch ICT fan and look objectively, if this was another club then people would question if the manager knew what he was doing (just like they did with Warbs at The Rangers earlier in the year when they had a poor season start and he kept swapping and changing players)

yes, perspective required: motherwell - 5-0 hapoel beer sheeva - 5-2 aberdeen - 4-1 rangers - 5-1 kilmarnock - 6-1 man city 3-3 ross cunty - 4-0 man city - 1-1 partick - 4-1 hearts - 4-0 st Johnstone - 5-2 losing 1-0 or 6-0, its a cup game, it disnae really matter, and better teams than us, on any given day, will be on the end of a whipping from the rampant Bhoys. Would it have been nice to keep it respectable, yes, does it change anything, no. I wonder if this humping might in fact galvanise the team as opposed to sending it into the meltdown that everyone fears. The rest of the bottom 7 all face Sellic again in the league, with 4 of them having to go to parkhead. i expect to see some scorelines akin to this one during that time.

I'm surprised nobody has been able to name any of the pedestrians yet!

Why only the resources for one keeper, we have at least 5 centre forwards on the books, an abundance of wide men and god knows how many central midfield players, could we have not sacrificed one of them for an experienced keeper. To go into a relegation battle with one goalkeeper who I am led to believe is not 100 % fit is an absolute cluster. This should and could have been addressed in the window if not before.

You know you're having a bad season when a 6-0 hammering isn't considered to be in the top 4 of worst results, not even getting a single vote!

certainly seems to have a problem with confidence at the moment, but he is exposed by a shaky defence who don.t seem to know what they are doing. It was all well and good Foran coming out with a policy of attack attack attack, but it should be based on a solid defence a mid field that knows what is doing and not just on Draper. I have said it before Vigors appears to be a bit player good when he feels like it but most of the time just drifting about. Get a solid defence which includes the midfield and build from there become difficult to beat then effective up front we now have an effective centre forward lets use him. ,

i would suspect, although i have no evidence whatsoever, that we have put certain players out on loan to free up a small part of the wage bill, to allow ourselves to stretch us a wee bit, so we can take in players, that everyone was screaming about.

Cannot fathom that if OFW serious lack of form is down to playing when he is unfit, then why would we loan out are 2nd choice keeper. The squad RF has put together is horrendously imbalanced with no defensive cover and a abundance of attack minded bit part players.

Best we can hope is that the gap doesn't grow during the next three games.

Dean Brill wouldn't have earned us money by going to the EUROs.

I was reading Sarah Fraser's excellent book on the old Lord Lovat, and was reminded how the Sneck was 300 years ago a thriving port with close connections to the Baltic ports, Holland, etc., far more than with London. Also, that more than half of the population of the Scotland lived above the Highland Line, with the glens all around us relatively well populated. Fast forward to 2017 and the place is a cultural, economic and environmental desert, a backwater scrambling to get by through tourism and supermarkets. The union has been a complete disaster for the Highlands.

Having just returned having been to Celtic Park yesterday, Celtic were actually outstanding. We have caused them significant trouble over the years but no one really expected any repeat performances. We come back at least £100k richer as a club, Aberdeen used to get battered worse than us,and we can now focus on one competition. Apart from recent history with our poor run in the league, there is no reason why we cannot squeeze points out of the next three very difficult games despite the adversity starting this Saturday with a lot of injuries and key suspensions. In addition Billy King was injured against Celtic but is unavailable against his parent club. Hearts will have a certain focus on the Scottish Cup replay and possibly on the next round if they get a good draw. Problems started yesterday with the second goal (its nature and timing) just before half time. We worked very hard in the first half despite playing a team who are completely undefeated on the domestic front this season. Had we come out at 1-0 for the second half the game might have been much tighter. We have now got that game out of our system and if we refer to Hamilton's far worse trouncing at Celtic Park last season (19 Jan 2016 and 8-1) , they dusted themselves down and reacted very positively to the result. We can rest assurred that everyone connected with the club will do everything this week to do the same.

I wish I had a pound for every time I have read something like that over the last two seasons. The fact is that our fortunes don't have to change. It's a competitive sport, not a lottery. You make your own luck. The only way out of the mess is to play out of it. Although it must be about time for a call to Harry Redknapp

I put appointing Richie Foran as manager.

As you drift to at the end of your Mathematics post - This is NOT about statistics. Another three defeats - especially if they are heavy - will sap the confidence further, will increase the general anxiety levels, will increase the fan frustration and Foran and the Board will be under EXTREME pressure. We are currently 3 points adrift of 11th and FIVE points adrift of 10th. Lets look at Hamilton who have Plastic Whistle (away), Cellic (away) and Aberdire (home) which is hard going. But if they pick up three points we could be 6 adrift and goal difference then comes into play. And then we only have six games before the split - Plastic Whistle (away); Tinkerville (home); Killie (home); Aberdire (away); St Jones Town (home) and Well (away).

Sorry but I feel that this needs continued debate. If I was in charge I would be looking at Richie's contract and looking at a deal to end it. A legend but one that needs to go before we actually make things a lot worse for him. The next two games may be chalked down to just go fer it affairs. Sevco is more of a could do. We need to get in a new management team for the Sevco game. We then have to task them to either save us from relegation or prepare to bounce back up again. Richie is NOT going to change things, Richie is not going to infuse the necessary passion. Richie unfortunately can only make things worse. I do NOT want to remember him as the man who took us out of the Premiership and potentially further down the ladder. The Board are also the ones that need to make that decision and that would be a major back down for them. Do they actually have the bolls to do it ?

Unless we can buy in a really good experienced keeper we must hold on to OFW, his confidence is low, his injury, I fear, has not mended properly but he will come good when fully fit. Do not bring in someone else's reject.

Whats yogi gotta do with us being humiliated today if he was still here no way wed b rooted at the bottom

That's about as happy clappy as it gets.

It's a demonstration of what's possible when you think a bit outside the norm when working with advertisers and sponsors. Dicksons are sponsoring what's already in place with interviews, but further support and buy-in will be needed as we (fingers crossed) roll out further services to ensure they remain sustainable. Two new volunteers have joined the media team in recent weeks and are quickly finding their feet....freeing up others to develop new services. It's not all going to happen overnight and things will be grown at a sensible and manageable pace for the long term.

A UK wide referendum has the same franchise as a General Election, Scotty....so ex-pats who were registered to vote in UK within the previous 15 years, Irish and Commonwealth citizens living in UK can vote, but not EU citizens resident in the UK, Lords, or prisoners. For Brexit, Gibraltar was added for the referendum because it was going to be directly affected. The franchise for the Independence Referendum was the same as for a Scottish election.....a current voter registration at a Scottish address.....Westminster didn't extend the ex-pat rule to Wales, NI or Scotland elections. I'm pleased about that, because I don't see why anyone who has moved away permanently enough to have given up his home in Scotland (or anywhere else in the UK, for that matter) should have the right to continue to influence the make-up of any UK Government and not suffer ALL the consequences of the choice they made. It's bad enough that people living elsewhere, with a second home in Scotland, can register to vote...and influence the results of elections which will only affect them from time to time. It is an offence to vote twice in the same type of election, but a Scottish Election is not a General Election. And aren't you lucky...because the Government is thinking about letting ex-pats vote in UK elections for life....which is flaming ridiculous!

Here's the last of the videos.....Dicksons are the new "Interviews Sponsor" for CaleyJagsTV. I should also hopefully have some good news (especially for overseas fans) in regards to expansion of CaleyJagsTV in the very, very near future. Having been let down on the tech front so many times over the last 12(?) years of trying to get things up and running, I don't want to get ahead of myself until it's in place!!

It is a good source who isn't exactly known to make up stories. Again though, phrases such as 'what I gather...' are used in the English language when one wishes to show that they are not sure if it is 100% accurate but seem to have a reasonable amount of truth to them. If you have heard the opposite re - Fisher though, please feel free to share.

Well, our February looks fantastic and just what we need to turn our season around! An away tie to a regrouping Sharts, a home tie against an ever imploding Sevco and a home tie against the other of the ugly sisters, who appear to be quite good! whilst there is some debate as to what points may be required to avoid relegation, the main target has to be to hold ground over the rest of the month? 3 points needs to be the target from these. We got a draw against Sharts already, and we need to go some way to making amends for our early season drubbing. Both home and away against the new team, we were really unlucky and deserved to come away with something. Now that they are going through their usual soap opera nonsense, perhaps we can kick them when they are down. And we'll, Celtic at home...that needs to be not embarrassing! That's all I'm saying about that! its a horrible few games, but let's look at Hamilton's month: @ Patrick @ Celtic v Aberdeen if I was a Hamilton fan, I too, would be looking at 3, possibly 4 points from these. So, we need to keep pace with Hamilton, that's all we can ask for this month. It's the games against the other 6 teams around us that are the real '6 pointers', and those are what we must focus on? Other teams results have actually gone in our favour for most of the season so far, with the teams around us generally drawing and getting beaten by the top 5, this needs to continue, and we need to pick up some much needed wins. RF has said it's not about playing good football it's about grinding out results...well, that attitude needs to start on Saturday, bin the Septic game, they are a different class, but use it as a learning experience and try to ensure that feeling doesn't return. Avoiding relegation - easy!!! ps Admin - can the phrase Happy Clapper be added to the swear word filter?

I think we should keep the happy clappers term but need to find a title for the depressing droners. If your at one end of the scale your a happy clapper but yet deem it perfectly normal to depress the heck out of everyone with your depressing thoughts. Say for instance your company deals with orders worth millions and you don't get the order do you go round telling everyone were going bust or do you make sure you win the next order coming round it's that simple. Agree it's a pretty tough February. Even nine points from our next nine matches. Anything more are bonus points, sarting on Saturday. Now that the high flying Celtic match is out of the way we can concentrate on survival. We aren't looking for ' the great escape' Just a gradual rise up the table. Our fans turning up at Tyncasle aren't arriving to watch us get beat they are there for the Caley Jags so play for them.

12th man, you were perhaps being a bit too selective when you chose only to quote the words "Yogi with a team that reached Europe and won the Scottish Cup, was a result of the quality of the players he recruited " whereas if you had instead chosen to extend your quote to the entire sentence "It has become increasingly apparent that much of the success of the Butcher era, which had enough momentum to provide Yogi with a team that reached Europe and won the Scottish Cup, was a result of the quality of the players he recruited" a different interpretation may have emerged. Now I do agree that there would have been no scope at all for ambiguity at all if I had said "the players which Butcher recruited" or "the players which he (Butcher) recruited" . In hindsight that would have been a better way of putting it since the last named person before the "he" is indeed "Yogi" rather than "Butcher". But, given that "Yogi" is in a separate clause interpolated into the statement linking "Butcher" and "he", and that the full sentence doesn't seem as ambiguous as the part of it you selected.... I maybe just got away with it! So to avoid any ambiguity - in my view, much of the success at ICT of John Hughes, whose own signings were less than impressive, originated from players recruited by Terry Butcher.

Stop making excuses. it was Celtic, it was Parkheid, Celtic also hammered Rangers, Celtic were excellent. Bottom line, we were *****. Its no good saying such and such was good when they came on, the game was lost by then and Celtic just wanted the pride of a clean sheet. 40m for Dembelle, rubbish, maybe worth 6 or 8 million. WE NEED TO GET CLEAN SHEETS, WE NEED DESIRE, WE NEED COURAGE, AND WE NEED SOME LUCK. C'mon Caley Thistle, lets start playing for our lives, we can still do it, Hearts have had 2 good games, Rangers are in turmoil, and at home we are the only team to stop Celtic having full points. We can get something out of these next 3 games, then we can pass the play off spot and get safety. Come on Jaggies

Had that comment been made rather more appropriately in the Serious Topics section, I would POSSIBLY have been tempted to point out the multiple historical fatuities of its final sentence.

Along with the Happy Clappers and the Depressing Droners, we also have an abundance of experienced Premiership First Team Managers and Board Members. I cant understand why we are in the position we are with all this experience and expertise floating around. Amazing!