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Sorry IHE, cant agree. I am sure there are lots of nuances, and blame for things can be spread around in multiple directions past and present, but the sad reality is that our club is in the worst situation it has ever been in. In the first 10 years or so we trended upwards, so-called "punching above our weight for a club of our size", reaching the Premiership almost in line with the timescale in the 10-year plan outlined by Dougie McGillvray and followed through by others who came along after him. In the next 10 we continued to trend mostly upwards with the odd blip as we reached our highest ever league position, won the cup, and qualified for Europe. Now we find ourselves literally falling off the edge of a cliff and headed for the third tier in the 9 years that have followed those highs. I hope we reach 30 but there has to be some serious doubt about that. If we go down, I don't see how we come back. DF may be a club man, and a legend to Evertonians or indeed to Tannadice and perhaps even Ibrox dwellers for his "fighting spirit" but there seems little of that in evidence at ICT recently. He inherited a shambles, tried to fix it with the aforementioned cheap loanees as the budget doesn't allow anything else, and its not working. Anyone earning a wage has been shipped out permanently or on loan and there is little to no team spirit that can create that "Dunkirk Spirit" you talk about. The buck for that stops with the manager even if the situation is not entirely of his own making. Off the field, it is impossible to like what we see there either. We seem arrogant and entitled in the extreme when it comes to dealing with everything, from fans to football, especially the concert debacle and, whether you support it or not, also the battery farm. We have done that debate to death, but the concert really hurt our reputation in the local business community. Trust is something you earn and we well and truly burnt that particular bridge regardless of who or what entity legally owned the concert company. As for the battery farm, it seems naive that we would slap our name on it, let ILI try to do the legwork and assume it would be passed simply because it had the ICT name. I can't criticise the club for trying to generate income streams or look for ways to supplement dwindling matchday revenues which have almost always fallen short of breaking even or making a profit unless we had an extended cup run, but we seem to lurch from one hair-brained eggs-in-one-basket scheme to another these days. The buck for that stops with the person in charge of the day to day running of ICT and that would be our CEO. The board do not get a pass either, but I do have to give them credit for constantly dipping into their pockets to keep us afloat ... none of us could do that, and in the absence of a sugar daddy like Uncle Roy, we do have to give them some credit for putting finances into the club. It would be easy to walk away if they didn't care. Perhaps someone there cares enough to do some straight talking to all these points and try to revive the #TogetherNess that we once felt in the ICT family.

Ridgers Duffy Devine Harper Carson Welsh McGregor Doran McKay Samuels 10 players that we had when Dodds was 45 minutes away from the Premier League. Ferguson had all of these players at his disposal when he joined and couldn’t do anything. I don’t think we can now blame Dodds for this, he was sacked in September.

I thought that's what he would be instilling but it certainly doesn't appear so from what I've watched. Also why would he be trying to foster a 'dogs of war mentality' when he feels we are, I quote 'excellent' and 'brilliant' according to him? I can only surmise that he is quite happy that the team is playing the way he wants, even if we lose/drop points. He seems completely unmoved but the urgency of the situation and how precarious things are not just for this season and relegation but for the future of our club. I wasn't hugely enamoured by his signing as I didn't see what he was bringing to the club for a 3 year deal. Limited managerial experience for a club our size, little knowledge or experience of Scottish football and a poor managerial track record. Just seemed to be on the back of his 'fame' and being someone Scot Gardiner would love to parade around. However I was happy to give him a chance as I am with all new players and managers but there's nothing I've seen to indicate a battling, seige mentality I thought he might bring, just ponderous, one dimensional football and referee blaming. Another masterstroke from our illustrious CEO.

Where is the evidence of the dogs of War mentality? I haven't seen any sign of it. His post match interviews are now bizarre and show no urgency or acceptance of where we are. We last won at home in November. I just want this season to end.

You’ve been swooned by the name unfortunately. He has shown no passion from the games I’ve been to this season. The interviews recently are the most frustrating thing though, he’s not even being truthful to the fans. What you mention above is exactly the type of words that should be coming out of his mouth after matches. If it was i could get behind that, but I don’t see much fight or care going on.

We have played 10 games in February and March, during which time we’ve been knocked out of the cup, not won a game, and taken 5 points out of a possible 27. That run of 9 winless league games is very similar to our bad runs under Dodds in each of the previous two seasons. I’m really struggling to see any signs that we are capable of collecting enough points in our last five games to get ourselves to safety. I hope I’m wrong and we put a run together, as we really need to beat Arbroath and Queens Park in our next two games. Slipping up in either does not bear thinking about.

Much as I admire your optimism, I just wonder if you've managed to attend a home game recently?

Sorry Johndo we must agree to disagree here. He's just not what we need at this particular moment sadly.

Duncs has had every game since 30 Sep last year to shape this team and the cheap loanees you refer to are his signings. He has had plenty time now to make the situation better than he found it, but hasn’t. With 5 games remaining this season I would like to share your optimism, but don’t.

The next Fans Meeting organised by the Supporters Trust will take place at the Caley Club from 1200 until 1415 on Saturday 6 April. The meeting is open to all fans, and follows on from the meetings held earlier in the season, which allowed many fans to put questions to the club Chairman, Ross Morrison, and Director, Scott Young. This is your opportunity to ask your questions or to make your point about anything to do with Caley Thistle. You can register your interest in the meeting or find out more about it here: https://www.ictsupporterstrust.org/events-1/ictfc-fans-open-meeting-everyone-welcome-4 We have been delighted to welcome new members recently, and if you are not already a member, have a look round the Trust website and you can join here for only £5 (£1 for Under 16s): https://www.ictsupporterstrust.org/join-us We hope to see as many of you as possible on 6 April.

Interesting. I had actually been wondering if Billy’s contract could be a bit of a millstone around our neck next season, with him presumably being our highest paid player by a long way, but not really providing us with the goals that we would have expected when we gave him that contract.

Getting rid of Dodds was correct decision. However he was not replaced by the right person at that time imho

That’s a masterful appraisal of the club’s status from Scotty there, although I do also agree with Johndo’s point that Duncan has been hamstrung by a very low budget. In that regard, I don’t think we know how good a job Duncan is capable of in the same way as we don’t know how good a dentist is if all they have to work with are hammer and chisel. Fundamentally, we have no way of finding out just how desperately low the player budget is and therefore whether we are having to rely on players who would struggle to get a full time contract anywhere else and loanees whose parent clubs have possibly been quite glad to get rid of them. Note that I am simply saying we don’t know here, because we have no way of even guessing how much is being spent on the squad - partly because the latest available accounts reflect a period that ended almost two years ago and also that they are not obliged to show earnings or expenditure, but simply the profit/loss situation (most recently a loss of £835K). All we therefore know is that we have a squad that isn’t performing but we don’t know whether we are simply getting what we have paid for and that neither Dodds nor Ferguson could be expected to make bricks without straw. Moving on to Scotty’s crystal clear appraisal of the club’s status, both historical and current, we need to come to terms with the fact that the club has been bailed out by well wishers for years now. For instance 2018/19 alone needed £1 million in new shares - ie financial gifts - and since then hands regularly been put into pockets. What makes this all the more egregious is that TWO YEARS of trying to raise cash by non-football means have been utterly wasted since one bright idea went bust and the other has hit serious trouble which was apparently not foreseen. Scotty also makes the point that the club’s local reputation has been substantially trashed as a result of these twin disasters. I would add that I felt distinctly ashamed at the last AGM when I pressed the top table on the failure of the Concert Company and received the almost triumphant reply that the football club had extracted money for stadium hire from the concert company BEFORE it went bust, leaving several local traders out of pocket. Add that to the bellicose and arguably coercive pronouncements emanating from the club during the recent planning process and I really do worry about local public perception of this club and hence willingness to support it should it run into even more serious trouble. As a veteran of the crisis of 1999-2000 when Tullochs had to intervene to spirit away £2.3 million of debt and before that of a multitude of existential cliffhangers during the merger, I am still finding it difficult to see how the club can escape from this one, especially in a local atmosphere where a body that should enjoy widespread esteem has got itself into a position where it is actively disliked in many quarters.

Best April fools I've seen today

Of course I am swayed by the memories of Dunc the toffee and I know that his fighting spirit will never die. I could argue and argue on here but to me this is NOT the team that Dunc wanted it was more about staying within unbelievable budget restrictions. And who do we have to go "direct" FFS ?? We dont play pretty football - we simply do not have any particular individual who can turn a game. Lets face it this team are the worst in our history and our only escape route is the dogs of war mentality.

If my calculations are right, we have scored 12 home league goals in 15 matches. If you deduct the Ayr (November) and Partick (Feb) matches we have scored 6 home goals in 13 matches. It really has been an awful year to be a season ticket holder unfortunately. We are far too predictable in my opinion - it's time to dump the pretty football in the last few matches, be more direct and fight hard for every loose ball to save our season.

Can't say I've seen anything resembling passion and the only fight has been when he's turned in fans at the end of games. I was one of those saying he should be given time but his press/interviews and actions are showing him to have a scarily similar delusional personality to our CEO.

So I may be biased and protective of a player who was a real club man and a fighter (in many ways!!). He is getting a load of negative flak at the moment but if there was one person that I would pick to be in the trenches with me it is Dunc. He has been up against it from the off. IMHO scapegoated from the off and now taking hits for the bunch of self motivated morons who are the people responsible for bringing this club to its knees. Duncs main problem is that he has nowhere near the quality of players required to bring any footballing system to fruition. We currently have the worst squad of players that we have ever had - a mottley crew of cheap loanees desperate for playing time to progress their own careers. Unfortunately the ones with potential have picked up the injuries. There has been no consistency and I hazard a guess that most fans would have difficulty in picking a first X1. But what Dunc does bring to the party is pure passion and the Dunkirk spirit. The next two games are must wins and if Dunc can instill the passion and drive we will survive. And I am referring to passion and not from a skill or system perspective. Dunc needs to instill a "dogs of war" mentality and the players have to give the fans a degree of hope. So I am predicting six points in the next two games - however accomplished and escaping in 8th place at the end of the season.