The Mantis

7 hours ago, Jaggernaut said:

Nathan Shaw for me, was our best player yesterday, and not for the first time in several games, and I was reading that his contract is up at the end of June 2024, if this is correct, has the club entered into a contract extension, and if they have,  and Nathan doesn't want to extend his contract with ICT, shouldn't they make him available for transfer? Otherwise he will be the next one of our long list of top players to leave the club for nothing.

I shudder to think where we’ll end up if we sell Shaw who has been our best player this season and the only scrap of quality we have in the team while Sean Welsh is out.

3 hours ago, Gringo said:

Only the profit is added to your total so 215.5 should be correct. 

Ah right, cheers.

Falkirk Bairns @ 1.50 

If I'm understanding the scoring I should have 204 +21.5 = 225.5?

Did it help just by putting the odds in as text?

I have a load of similar problems which prevent me posting as much as I would. However in decreasing order of hassle I get: Desktop Mac > iPad> iPhone so although using the phone is less convenient it works nearly every time. However photos tend to be on my Mac so posting photos and quoting others is a real problem.

18 hours ago, hislopsoffsideagain said:

My current take on the squad, by position:

 

Goalkeepers

Fine. A good solid number one and a cheap number two who we can just about get by with if Ridgers is injured/suspended/gets dropped for having a hissy fit with the manager. That's about as good as anyone in this division can afford at the position.

 

Right-back

There's been nothing so far from Davidson to suggest he is a better option than either Duffy (who Dodds seems to want to play at CB), Carson (who Dodds seems to want to play in midfield) or Hyde (who has struggled badly when deployed here in the past)

 

Left-back

Last season Harper looked better in a midfield role, and he is still more defensively suspect than I would like. Nicolson could have made a real push for this position before his injury, which is a blow. Delaney can cover here in an emergency, I guess. Not the biggest priority (see below) but I would love another LB so Harper can play higher up the pitch.

 

Centre-back

If we go through the season playing two of Devine (who has clearly lost confidence from not having a reliable partner beside him), Duffy and Delaney here then we could well be relegated. We need at least one and possibly two new central defenders in.

 

Central midfield

Welsh and Gilmour might be a decent first choice pairing. But if/when Welsh is out there seems to be a real drop-off. MacGregor might be a capable replacement but he's always injured too! The Carson-Gilmour combination doesn't seem to be working though. Hyde hasn't impressed when given the chance previously.

 

Attacking midfield/wide players

Obviously we are very lucky to have Shaw, but we don't seem to have adequately replaced Henderson or Daniel Mackay. It doesn't seem like Doran is up to two games a week (or even much more than cameos off the bench) any more. Longstaff is this season's Steven Boyd - a cheap option with potential (if we're lucky) to be a rough diamond. 

 

Attack

We don't seem to have a team with the quality to bring the best out of Mckay right now, so hard to know if he's in decline or just being let down. Dodds' tactics mean that Samuels and Brooks are almost always deployed wide, where it is clear neither are especially comfortable. Lodovica is the big target man you throw on when you're desperate and doesn't seem to offer enough to justify a bigger role.

 

For me, the priorities for new signings this week are:

 

1) Central defence - a new defence rather than a new defender please!

2) Another wide player

3) At least one starting quality full-back

Pretty much nail on head. Thought Longstaff looked decent when he came on. Full of confidence and running.

1 hour ago, big cherly said:

What a bunch of moaners! A close match by all accounts and just loosing by the odd goal away from home to a newly promoted team isn’t the end of our promotion bid! 
Hitting the bar twice and a one man advantage was an opportunity missed to take a point back up the road.
BD and SG are going nowhere, we should back them fully! 
I don’t think we are to far off turning the corner. With a turn of luck we will get the result the team and BD rightly deserves and the fans will forget this early blip!

bc

Dodds is a tactical genius. He noticed that the two goals were defensive howlers so he switched to 3 at the back because that reduced the number of defenders so fewer howlers.
Devine will get pelters for the second although Davidson had about 3 chances to hoof it before putting Devine in trouble with a pass he obviously wasn’t expecting.
Airdrie are obviously buzzing right now but what a limited side on that showing, although apparently they took County all the way. They won’t get an easier 3 points all season and they don’t half like a niggly foul. Can’t really blame them for timewasting although their keeper took it to a new art form.
Nathan Shaw was the best player by a mile so expect Uncle Roy’s Mercenaries to come calling before long. Apart from that very little to praise apart from Longshanks the sub, and possibly Gilmour who needs to keep the heid. I thought Ethan Cairns showed in flashes but was kept quiet by the no 2 Ballantine.
If Danny is the best defender we have, you know we’ve got problems.

We’re going down. You probably didn’t hear it here first. 

I think this is Strome off Gringo’s list

Falkirk Bairns @2.15

I was looking for Totaig - Dornie but I assume it wasn’t a car ferry so isn’t listed. When I was a teenager, two of us hiked all the way from Ratagan Hostel to Totaig as there was a ferry marked on the map. We had to walk back to Shiel Bridge and there was no way we were walking to Kyle from there so we got a bus. Maybe we should have asked at the hostel first

51 minutes ago, Robert said:

Things have changed a lot!

I remember my father belting up the A82 hoping to make the last Ballachulish Ferry so we didn’t have to trail round by Kinlochleven, which always seemed to take hours despite only adding around 30 minutes to the journey.

In my case it was going round by the Kincardine Bridge to Fife as my old man was too tight to get the ferry. He actually worked on the construction of the road bridge and when it opened in September 1964 I was there with one of the girls from my primary class.

Some nice info there Gringers, and it sparked a few memories. Made me look up the date for the Clyde Tunnel opening (1963) as I thought it had always been there

I would be just above Wyness at the bottom if you listed it in alphabetical order…

49 minutes ago, crownjaggie said:

I have looked to try to find a way of contacting privately to one of the admins, but I may as well say my piece here.

I was diagnosed with thymus cancer 18 months ago.  Chemo, surgery radiotherapy followed.  All seemed successful until July.  This Wednesday I had the results of my last ct scan which were not good.  Some rogue cells were immune to Chemo and have mutated and spread rapidly.  My prospects now are counted in weeks so I will be leaving the site in the near future.

I will try to be the howling wind that blows the ball in the net for our boys, cos they definitely need help at the moment.

Crown Jaggie

Will pm you.

Bonnyrigg v Stranraer DRAW @3.4

19 hours ago, IBM said:

You must have a drone now to get these excellent photos 

Aye got one in April. They’re great value for money now. A mate demonstrated one for me 8 years ago so you can see I’m partial to an impulse buy

Loch Seaforth coming into Stornoway last week

Accies got the plum tie. We got the steak & black pudding pies though. And the smokies.

52 minutes ago, bdu98196 said:

Oh look, the mods are getting upset at criticism of the directors. I'm sure given all your powers you can change the title if you want but I'll reiterate given the nature of 2 other threads on this site its clearly about our CEO.

 

Better just to stop digging when you’re in a hole instead of chucking red dots around at people giving their honest opinion. Fwiw I agree with the sentiments but when you sober up tomorrow you’ll realise you made a Roger Hunt of yourself if you think anybody moderating this site is in the pockets of the directors.

We’re never going to win many games with Sean Welsh missing. We’ve got loads of players who can play CM but that’s quantity not quality. If Sean wasn’t forever carrying knocks he wouldn’t be with us. 

1 minute ago, bdu98196 said:

Did you, not sure if your serious or trying hard to be obtuse? As its clearly about Scot Gardiner who's the ringmaster in this circus.

 

Well no, here’s another whose first impression was that it was aimed at Scott Mackenzie till I read the post. 

24 minutes ago, Scotty said:

For me, I think the best option - whether some agree with the organisation and its current leadership or not - is to make the Supporters' Trust "strong and relevant". Call out that statement for the BS it is!! An inbuilt voting share of 10% plus the potential to have other supporters to perhaps proxy their personal shareholdings to the Trust may be the quickest and possibly most effective way to have a voice heard. 

I hear the arguments made, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but for those who decry the lack of communication from the club, then the Supporters Trust is at least communicating on here in this forum, and has been reasonably often, as well as the subforum they asked us to setup (https://caleythistleonline.com/forum/152-supporters-trust/) and it should be noted that they also just setup their own feedback forum on the back of the report: https://www.ictsupporterstrust.org/forum

Only issue I have is I don't use credit card for personal online purchases and there does not appear to be a PayPal or alternate payment option otherwise I would be reporting now that I have joined already because the 'strong and relevant' comment has tipped the scales for me.    

I’m a member of the Supporters Trust because despite all the criticism and objections to its purpose, every little helps (blatant cringy Tescotown reference). I suppose that not living in the Sneck skews my viewpoint as there’s hardly anybody I don’t get on with so there’s no personal politics involved.

Wise words Scotty. I’ve kind of bucked the trend here as I had a spurt of optimism at the end of the season, despite having been in the Dodds Out camp, or rather the Gers Lite Loyal Lackeys GTF camp for most of the season. 
So I bought a season ticket for the first time in many years, because I can afford it, although it’ll only get used 2 or 3 times. I only come up for home games nowadays if I’m staying over, or if there’s a deal on the trains. I was up for the Bonnyrigg game and the season so far has echoes of 2016-17.
Going to mostly away games means the club doesn’t get any benefit although I try to buy the merch. I’m not convinced that boycotting solves anything as it appears that the business is on a knife edge anyway and the only road that leads is part time fitba and the seaside leagues, or worse. I’m in agreement with STFU and others that change is urgently required but as for what I’m going to do, if there was any kind of campaign worth joining, great, but otherwise I’ve no idea.
 

Falkirk Bairns @3.10

Shetland ferry Bigga leaving Toft (mainland) for Ulsta (Yell).