Tree

It is a bit more than just missing Richie's presence though I suspect that this would paper over some of the obvious problems (as may Billy have had he taken his chances in the past two games!). Hughes is unfortunately (and as predicted by many) leading us back to the bottom six. His tactical flaws as know are massive and unless he appoints an assistant who can sort this out and more importantly stand up to him I think the Board will see the costly error in their judgement (to the tune of £70k per league place). Again he seems to not be able to see the basics and we were crying out for a right footed player at right back. When we switch to a 4-4-2 (and setting aside the fact that Tobi is not good enough), you cannot have both your central midfielders unable to pass. With Ross removed from the advanced midfield we were left huffing and puffing and it was easy for County to defend as they could keep players back and hit on the break whilst knowing we did not have the means to move the ball quickly into spaces or pass through them. An odd situation comes about with the red card in the we take Polworth on whi can pass and suddenly we are stretching County width wise and dropping a pin point pass for the goal. I'm sure Yogi will tell us that the second was not his fault in encouraging players to pass sideways (and he does love his sideways passing) when our central defense were forward expecting a ball to be played into the box! Oh well, at least at this rate I'll save money on a Season Ticket next year. But 10 days ago I was saying to a half dozen who have already decided that they will give ICT under Hughes a miss next year that they need to give him a chance, My bad!

Yogi's first real test is likely to be finding a replacement for McKay as it is only a matter of time till he leaves (will be surprised if he is still here after Jan). We need to work on the basis that we have to find a replacement now and hope that we have till the summer to bed the player in. At the moment if Billy goes we are likely to have to play Foran (if fit) up front or rely on untried players. Toby has shown nothing to suggest he is good enough for the top flight I'm afraid and Curtis never worked out.

I'm sure the ref would have chalked the goal off if Celtic had scored as a result of him preventing Draper closing the player down. No......thought not. Rather than whining away at Draper perhaps he should think about apologising to him the next time!

I'm a bit baffled by the view that we played ok. Celtic ambled through the game as they knew that they did not have to do much more after scoring the early goal as we lacked any penetration and edge in the last third. In fact, I don't remember us ever being as toothless against Celtic since the first couple of seasons in the SPL (even when we ended up getting well beaten). As much as we slag Lennon off, Celtic knew how we would play and what our strengths are and ensured that we were (in general) not allowed to play to these. I thought we were crying out for Raven to give an ability to assist Watkins (who would not have been allowed to amble timidly through the game in the way he did under the old regime!) and switch Shinnie to the left back position to utilise the only real space on the pitch (nothing against Tremarco but he does not offer the same threat going forward). In many ways I don't want to pick out individual players for criticism, however Williams only seems to be able to run around and offer little else (though he seems to be able to cross a ball on occasion). Criticism of Ross and Doran was also wide of the mark and they at least put effort into trying to find space and make things happen. We seem to have lost that bit of sparkle in the last few games and I think Hughes has over reacted to the Aberdeen game by concentrating too much on stopping the opposition at the expense of attack. I appreciate that judging things against Celtic is not reflective of the majority of games, however the tepid performance against Partick shows that we have stopped getting at teams sufficiently. 1 point out of 9 over the space of a single week has probably changed our season for the worse.

Think I would actually prefer Adams Absolutely baffled unless this is part of some wider plan.............................god knows what that will be mind you!

Clear difference in quality between the teams though we showed a bit of frustration at inability to break Morton down and got very sloppy for a while Nick was quality with a number of dangerous runs, touches and passes. When we moved the ball quickly and with conviction we were dangerous however too many touches and taking the wrong option kept the score down. Imrie still looks like a junior player with little quality. Managed to get fouls for falling over though?? Did Nacho Novo actually do anything right the whole game? Baffled how he managed to stay on the pitch

Where have we heard this before

It certainly is! Especially given that boats actually have the right of way, above the traffic on the roads. Not many peeps know that. There needs to be a change, stating that boats can only go thro at certain, quiet times. Not only that, the two swing bridges are a few yards apart....so if Boats are going thro the canal.....chances are.....traffic at BOTH bridges will be held up at the same time. how does that help the situation? Like many things.....very few, apart from the powers that be, seem to be in favour of option 6....but...as usual, they know they will be able to charge ahead with the project, coz of public apathy The traffic estimates show that 70% of the traffic will head back into Inverness from the crossing so the impact of the swing bridge is marginal to the main benefits. Suffering the hassle of trying to cross town at the moment I am simply looking forward to anything being built. The alternative is to discuss the matter for another 20 years and see the capital expenditure being used for the benefit of three sheep in the middle of nowhere. Whilst not directly related, in excess of £12m was generated from the sale of land from the Inverness Common Good for Eastgate 2 and Morrisons and this in effect has been used elsewhere.

So from recollection we dropped something like 60 points last year, however it was all down to Pepper in one game in which he came on that we missed out on Europe. Not losing so many points in the last few minutes of games or OTD failing to track his man on at least four occasions leading to goals, etc

"The primary criteria is that it is a neutral venue, geographically between the home grounds of the finalists" Doncaster seems to change his tune in a matter of weeks!

Hope your business isn't too badly affected when the privatised Royal mail put the prices up Laurence. After all they'll need to make 5% of turnover into profit to satisfy their shareholders. Just like the utility companies do. That'll be the same "evil" profit which pays for pensions (which rely on share dividend and transaction) and of course are taxed also (at least in theory ).

We can look forward to an open attacking style of play then

I think the point is that the current ICT Manager should not be "neutral"

If we can't get crowds at the moment how many people will turn up to watch a Craig Levein team defend their way to a victory with long ball up to big centre forward style adopted at Leicester, DU and Hearts?

He struggled for the first 20 minutes but he was not the only one. I thought he linked the play well for most of the match thereafter. I would still prefer Nick in this position though (think Polworth is better in a deeper role) but I am yet to be convinced about Greenhalgh (though to be fair he has limited time to adapt to the Scottish game yet)

Having sat through Saturday's game and let the dust settle here are my thoughts at least. 1. We started the game with our midfield jogging and SJ racing around. 2. SJ hit the ground running with just about every pass coming off. Always easier when there is not enough pressure on the ball with time to play the ball in to the front players and our defender being left with a man to mark and on occasions a further two players running past. 3. When the game starts like this keeping the ball is vital to take the sting out of the game and to allow some "resting in possession". In the first half hour Devine passed only to SJ unfortunately and Doran also lost the ball in the wrong part of the pitch too often 4. After the second goal we actually started to look to keep possession and on occasions made SJ look ordinary without ever really threatening (and when we got into good positions took the wrong option too often) 5. Much of the critisism of Polworth is a bit unfair. He started weakly but this was due in part to the nature of the way we were playing however the reason he was kept on was he linked the back to the front relatively effectively. Aside from this I prefer him played in a deeper role (against Charlton he walked through the game against a solid experienced and competative midfield). 6. I agree with Renegade that we are not good at reacting in game situations to tactics and make subs too late (which seems to be the way modern Managers are taught as this seems par for the course). 7. I disagree re Greenhalgh from last week. I didn't think he added too much and did not look ready for this level yet (may change yet). With two forced changes it is always easier to keep other players in position to try and maintain balance (I actually prefer Ross in the central position but understand why he was not played here). Unfortunately he disappeared in the second half completely In summary, too many players had an off day but we could have probably made some early changes to tactics to offset the issues. We also had players on the bench to make some positive changes earlier though I am not convinced this would have made a difference. SJ scored two well worked goals but we then gifted them two really poor ones in the second half (both their goals in the first half came from errors). At any level this is not acceptable.

It was always broke with queues back to Friar's Bridge and the Raigmore Interchange common at evening peak, however as per usual the fix is not quite what is needed. Why has a filter lane for north bound into Inverness been removed for example? The link road is actually a part of the cure with the traffic this will take away from the town centre and Longman helping to relieve the mid-week problems. Will do nothing for match day's however! It could be worse.......they could have come up with the nonsense the HC have managed to create at the campus entrance where traffic now goes up to two lanes before being throttled back to a single lane at the overbridge. A license for a few cars to "leapfrog" the cue and annoy anyone who stays in place. Why not extend the bridge and have two lanes through to Inshes roundabout (where it widens out to three lanes) and improve traffic flow?

Not sure one can say Butcher has assembled a full squad. ?? He certainly has a fine first 11. Not much on the bench though, unless somebody knows different? If we ge injuries or suspensions what can we do about it. The squad seems wafer thin to me. I am told rightly or wrongly that free transfers and loan players can be signed after the deadline if the club has room on the registration forms. We really ought to be looking for back ups. This is not a troll I am genuinly concerned with the bench. Hmmmmmmm. Think we've got a lot more on the bench than last year. Good young local players such as Polworth, experience such as Esson. New up and coming players like Williams, Greenhaugh, Adgensen and still Watkins and Allen to come in properly! So not sure what your problem is here Lawrence tbh. Have to agree ocg. The bench this year actually gives Butcher some options when for most of last season there was little in the way of players to change a game or shape of the team. If we get injuries or suspension??? We have the smallest budget and therefore one of the smallest squads in the league - how is this Butcher's fault? Of course we will be weakened when these happen but probably only Celtic carry enough players to cover injuries now.

The issue is that the lights are optimised for normal traffic flows in which there are a small number of north travelling cars turning right. Transport Scotland need to have a 'match day setting' which is enabled 11/2 hrs prior to kick-off. There will still be traffic delays but not the nonsense that happens at the moment.

Good luck getting SMEE to but a round. We've been trying for over 25 years without success

I've often thought that erecting a screen would be a (relatively) low cost way to improve the ambience of the ground. This would be a simple column and profiled sheeting structure with some of the cost possibly offset by additional advertising space created. External advertising is a bit more complicated due to the need to obtain Transport Scotland/Planning Approval. It would even be possibly to include permanent facilities for cameras whilst also helping to stop free 'sightseeing' old firm fans watching the game.

The wind behind Hearts in the first half possibly levelled the game a bit. Don't think we have dominated a top flight match as much as we did in the second half since Gretna were in the league.

More than the number that watched the first match against them last season

There was a failure of the central goals and score service yesterday which affected all the main outlets including Sky and BBC

Good display good noise from the away crowd! Polworth excellent for a young kid at this level