Bridge_Ender

I'd be quite happy if next seasons (assuming we stay in Div 1) looked something like this. I think Roy has reached the end of the road and his lack of involvement this season probably proves this. Fantastic servant but can't see him being offered a further deal. Golly probably falls into the same category but the lack of any other defensive cover means I included him in the squad players. Key Players Ryan Esson David Proctor Grant Munro Ross Tokely Russell Duncan Richie Foran Jonny Hayes Adam Rooney Danni Sanchez Dougie Imrie Squad Players Lee Cox Stuart Golabek Eric Odhiambo Nauris Bulvitis Kyle Allison Nick Ross Jamie Duff Gavin Morrison Graeme Shinnie Shane Sutherland Free to go? Lionel Djebi-Zadi Daniel Stratford Andrew Barrowman Robert Eagle Roy McBain

Promotion is still possible but the point I was making was that the Dundee match could pretty much end our interest as 15 points is too big a gap, 9 is do-able especially with facing each other twice more. The half-full as opposed to half-empty approach I guess! Also if we are consigned to Division 1 again, the huge knock on effect on finances means even less money being available for players, the standard drops again and we take another huge step back. With the comments in the P&J regarding not signing anyone up until the position is clear, it's obvious to me that the club see a huge amount riding on the festive fixtures and the results and decisions made as a result could affect us for years to come. That's why I think this is potentially one of the biggest games in our history.

Saturday really is a huge match for us. Possibly the biggest in the history of ICT.12 points behind, if we win it's back to 9 and I believe promotion is still achievable. Lose, 15 points back and realistically it is all over. If we win on Saturday and follow it up with a win over County the perhaps some momentum will be generated and the promotion push can re-ignite. Should we lose we are condemned to another season in Div 1, the knock on effect on finances and personnel and the reality is the club takes a massive step backward. I can't think of a match involving ICT where so much has been potentially been at stake for the future of the club. Even the Falkirk match didn't have as much riding on it, even though it transpires to have been the catalyst for the situation we now find ourselves in.

Looked good today, moved the ball well and don't think he wasted a pass. Bit hard to tell if it happened at the other end of the park though! Good signing as cover for a month.

Well done to the club for getting a supplier of vast experience and proven quality at some of the largest stadia in the country. Can only be a good thing for assuring standards are met and maintained as well as utilising and sharing experience gained in other venues.

Walked out on Spiers, he asked me "What's been the highlight of your career so far" - Career? Glittering Legacy more like. :lol: Wringing out my kit into a spray bottle. Selling this stuff on ebay makes me more than my wages. ;) Gary Caldwell will now hold a 10 Minute questions and answer session......With himself. :lol: Excellent banter whoever is behind it!

Foran's been due a red card a while now in fairness. I love the way he goes clattering into challenges but Ref's are bound to take a dim view and just been a matter of time really. Just a shame it had to be Barry who was involved... Still a legend, that definitely won't change!

I loved that tie he was wearing last night ! He wore that one after working out that all the ICT negatives come from blue and white factions whereas us red and blacks are forever positive. :) Ah, but his Blue and White suit far outweighed his Red and Black tie. Perfect advertising for the club and shows he knows his ICT history! :) :P (a little joke before anyone gets too upset!!)

I'd imagine STV would put up the caption most relevant to what he being a pundit on... His link to a Rangers makes him look far more qualified to talk about Champions League than being described as the Manager of a club who will never play in the competition. Not really a big deal either way I'd say, does it really matter what the caption is? Still good that he is on it (shocking suit tonight though ) and people who don't know where he is working currently would ask or look it up online so still generating awareness of ICT if that is the purpose of the moan?

100% agree with you Naelifts. I have been totally uninspired by what I've seen this year, and for the last few years. No point going into it now but we all know the general gripes and moans (quality of play, cost of getting in/day out, etc. value for money essentially). I was truly gutted at the result but thought the performance, from both sides, was magnificent. I have rarely, if ever, enjoyed a game of football as much as yesterday. It might even be the best game I have ever seen, certainly one of the best I've ever seen while watching ICT. The first half we were fantastic, second half Dundee came back into it but if it had been us and not Dundee who got the decisive goal no neutral would have denied we deserved it. No team really deserved to lose, a truly fantastic advert for Scottish Football. Two teams full of Scots putting on a 100mph Cup Final that was just fantastic entertainment. To those who want to moan about substitutes that may have been made or tactics that could have adopted, chillout and reflect on the fact that you saw an excellent game from 2 motivated teams and at the end of the day, it's the Challenge Cup. I didn't really care if we won it at the start of the season, I don't really care we lost it yesterday. It was just great to go to a game and be entertained for the 90 minutes. Great effort from everyone involved.

Thanks for clearing that up Charles, glad to hear that Clach at least floated the idea, even if the council haven't taken it forward. The introduction of a facility such as that would surely benefit both parties and others (i.e. Inverness City..). Surprised at the figure of 590 but just shows how deceptive appearances can be! A definite positive that the club themselves considered it a success. I heard the game v. Turriff was being played this Friday, unfortunately I am travelling overnight to Cardiff to watch a game of similar quality on the Saturday! It would be interesting to know if many other Inverness football fans would be interested in games being played on Fridays, Sundays or even earlier on a Saturday and would go along to both. The harsh reality is Clach can't compete with ICT/County or maybe even the free entry and similar standard of football offered by Inverness City. Definitely some thinking outside the box as regards marketing/timing of games IF they can survive. Very obvious that major changes are required on the management of the business side of the club.

Unfortunately not a great turn out tonight... A few Inverness (I assume) based Celtic fans, couple hundred maybe, but wouldn't say anymore than 300/350 there in total. Went to Clach Park a few times when I was growing up, probably best part of 10 years since had last been in it. Have to be honest, impressions tonight were less old worldly charm and more complete dump of a facility. Having said that, if Friday night games became a regular occurrence there and were priced around the ?5 mark, I would probably be tempted to go a bit more. Can anyone (Charles Bannerman perhaps?) clear up a query for me? Am I right in thinking that Grant Street is owned by the Council now, hence all the issues recently, and if so, why has it not been considered as the obvious choice for a 3G synthetic surface, a facility Inverness is absolutely crying out for? Surely it is the obvious location, ready made ground with a touch of history/prestige about it, and would be a real revenue generator for the Council and provide permanent, and dare I say it cheaper, long term homes for Clach and Inverness City as well as a fantastic all-weather facility for training kids, social football space, etc?

Can't say it would make much difference... The noise/atmosphere from Section G isn't really that great, constant or intimidating. Fair play to the guys that want to sing, enjoy yourselves, but don't make it out to be something it isn't... There have been groups before and there will be groups after you guys. Was it not BENI, or something similar, that made out they were superfans, the self appointed leader got in a hissy fit on here for not being appreciated enough and wandered off to support Killie?? Don't make the same mistake, just enjoy yourselves and don't take it all so seriously, it's football after all - it's supposed to be escapism from day to day life!!

Real supporters? How do you qualify to be a 'real supporter'? I'd be interested to know your definition on that one as I would class myself as one, having been an ICT supporter since attending that first friendly v. St Mirren at Telford Street all those years ago, although I don't jump around and sing... Surely an extroverted personality isn't a pre-requisite to being a 'real supporter' of a football team? On a further point, the atmosphere is pretty low key at matches, I'd agree. I also don't see why folk get so upset by others who don't show support in the same way as them. Coincidentally, I've been to quite a few football matches around Europe and some pretty fantastic atmospheres and the 'real supporters' in Section G, presumably defined as 'real' as they believe they provide vocal backing (of sorts), are really not that noisy, constant and even noticeable at most games. Not a criticism cos if the guys want to sing, let them sing, it's all good fun. Just think that if they consider what they get up to on match day as vociferous, boisterous or being the creators of an intimidating atmosphere then perhaps they need to experience football crowds a little more...

We are in a stronger position than most give us credit for. If someone had said we'd be 4 points off the top at the start of November at the start of the season I wouldn't have been too bothered and have said that was a great position to be in. Also, the Champions in waiting who have enjoyed an excellent start to this formality of a promotion season will (hopefully) be a point behind the team fighting against successive relegations this time next week... It's all about standards and expectations, we have higher than most given our recent history. Season has a very, very long way to go though...!

If I remember right the official club website, ictfc.co.uk, only came into being after promotion to the SPL IN 2004? There was no official ICT presence on the internet before that although this site was mentioned in the matchday programme. The developers of ictfc.co.uk, Perform Group, can even provide this service as part of the official site, no mention of what the added cost would be but when you look at some of their other clients, 13 Premiership clubs, pretty much all of the lower English clubs and half dozen Scottish clubs including Rangers, Hearts, Killie and Dunfermline, surely it isn't a difficult option to include? Also, was registration not required initially with ictfc.co.uk with the hint that further services would be forthcoming?

Yawn... every game this topic gets done to death... If you want to sing, sing. If you don't, don't. That's the way it is and it's always gonna be at Caley Park. For those of you who get so upset, talk of boycotting games if it doesn't improve, etc. why get so angry about it?!

McBain - Nearly 35, Butcher doesn't see him as one for the future and it is obvious his plan has been to build and develop a new younger team. Squad player but no longer a regular Barrowman - Continues to get chances but has yet again failed to take them. No arguments from this end about limiting his opportunities. Djebi-Zadi - Is God awful as a footballer. The 1st County game was hopefully the final straw. Nick Ross - 7 appearances and a first start 2 weeks ago, hardly disappeared or out of contention!! Graeme Shinnie - 1 appearance, full debut 2 weeks ago, did very well but probably not ready to come in to an under performing team and the pressure that would bring for an 18 year old just starting out. Jamie Duff - Out with a serious injury and had no time at the start of the season to get into the team. I do think he would have seen a lot of match action this year too. Vigurs and Wood I feel were bad decisions to allow to leave as I think both would have flourished at this level. Whether it was more an attitude issue, as has been rumoured with Vigurs, an ability decision or simply they were cheaper to release at the end of their contracts than others who still had time to run, who knows? Mihajduks would also have been a bonus had he been able to stay but that deal seemed as complicated as a Niculae sell-on clause and that possibly had more to do with it. Morais and Kerr were disappointing to lose too, although both have moved onto better things, either on a football or financial level. As for the other players who left the club, Hastings is the only one that I think I would have liked to have stayed but not hugely bothered that he left. Gathuessi and Byrne played something like 45 minutes between them and were no loss, neither has has managed to find a club while McGuire, possibly the slowest player I have ever seen, now plays with Formantine United. In short, Butcher clearly has the strategy he wants to bring in his own team, play his way and he feels this will be what takes the club forward. I like his ideas on paper, defence should be stronger than it is given the personnel we have there, I like the idea of playing with 2 wide midfielders to stretch the opposition and create space for front men. I feel the centre midfield in our weakest area but I really liked the way we played v Queens before the 2nd goal, with Sanchez in 'the hole' providing the link to the attack, first time I have seen ICT do that this season and probably in response to the issue of midfield not supporting the strikers effectively enough. The drawback has been performances haven't happened but maybe that is to be expected from a young and inexperienced team? It's the only calibre/experience of player we can afford unfortunately! It's clear we're going through one of these transitional phases, but personally I think that the guys who are there are potentially good enough. The team just need time to grow together, much as the previous teams have. It's just not going to be this year we return to the SPL...

If this is true it is absolutely ridiculous. If these people are so offended they have no place at a football match I'm afraid. I'm all for family sections and what not, anything to encourage kids and extra folk along, but if this nanny state culture is what the by-product is then the very essence of football supporting is changing too much for my liking. Political correctness really is the greatest scourge of modern society, Mary Whitehouse has a lot to answer for! Who complained? Is this a personal opinion of Mike Smith or has the SFA/SFL told ICT to clamp down? We're not exactly the loudest or most passionate set of supporters in the country anyway so can't imagine the crowd behaviour at TCS is an issue at Hampden for anyone.

Doubtful, unless one of them told Malpas to GTF at 8 this morning while another verbally abused a former managers wife...? Butcher wants them in for training, no words about not drinking! Yesterday was pretty dire by all accounts (work prevented me from going...) and Airdrie last week certainly was. Been a while since seen a decent performance though the reports from Motherwell were positive. 10am on a Sunday training? Won't be popular but will it get the message over? Who knows... Next Sunday becomes massive now though, anything less than 100% commitment and a victory is just not acceptable. Butcher has talked the talk and until now I've been prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. After his reactions to the last few bad performances and his major reaction to yesterdays, he's made the Gypo game his personal watershed match which, for me anyway, will pretty much confirm or deny if this squad and management have what it takes to perform at an acceptable level.

Definitely agree we need to get more physical/experienced in midfield. Get Duncan in with either Stratford or Cox. Both the young guys have ability and potential but they need a wee bit of guidance and experience beside them I feel. Eagles hasn't impressed me too much but I can see what Butcher is trying to do with him (same as Hayes, a pacey winger to give us an attacking option on either side). We have the makings of a decent side, certainly one strong enough to challenge for the title. Excellent goalkeeper, solid and experienced defence, decent attackers. Get the final piece (Duncan or McBain) of experience into the midfield and we're really gonna start moving forwards.

Wouldn't disagree too much with the smileys. Thought Stratford did a wee bit better than being given credit for, why we have Duncan and McBain and are not playing them I have no idea. A wee bit of experience in the midfield would have made a lot of difference today. I like Stratfords energy and coupled with Duncans ability in the holding position I feel that is a combination that could prove fruitful. Tactics... Where do you start?? TB starts with 2 wide men and every ball a hoof? Airdrie passed it around us at times. When we did play football we looked ok, dangerous even, then as soon as it broke down, HOOOOF, 6'5'' centre half heads it back... Surely there are enough footballers in our squad that we can use?? Get the ball down and make a pass, this long ball approach doesn't work, stretch the opposition with the pace of Hayes (who was excellent today). All that happens when its launched forward is it comes straight back and Foran starts getting more and more wound up and starts moaning and shouting at team mates!!

Very interesting to read these views... My own situation is probably very similar to many. Left Inverness 8 years ago to attend Uni, lived in Glasgow after Graduating and during pretty much my whole time there was adamant I would never return. However, the desire for a change of career direction necessitated the '1 step back to (hopefully) take 2 forward' approach and now I find myself back in 'The Sneck'. I won't stay here long term, the job I am doing I see very much as a way of getting experience in this field and then moving on to better pay and challenges elsewhere. I'd say 2, maybe 3 years at the very most before I move on again, although never say never is the motto I guess... The reasons I wouldn't stay are: - Very little nightlife and what nightlife exists is poor quality and aimed at the lowest common denominator. Understandable in such a small area with no student population. Completely archaic licensing laws do not help either. It is embarrassing to take friends from elsewhere out in Inverness with the 12 curfew... 3am opening is a slight improvement on the 1.30 close of a few years ago though... There is also a nasty atmosphere in a lot of Inverness bars/clubs during the busy nights, personally I would say I feel safer in Glasgow or Edinburgh than I do Inverness. - Loss of identity. The changes in Inverness are incredible in the last 10 years but this influx of people has, unfortunately, resulted in the identity of Inverness becoming totally diluted. Newcomers in itself is no bad thing, in fact I would argue it is a major positive, but the fact is it is essentially now 'Tesco Town' where everyone drives to spend their money in national chains and this has destroyed the local businesses and hence the individual character of the area. - The City/Town Council and their ridiculous ideas. Streetscape?? Come on! If ever there was an exercise in how to murder trade in an area this has been it. Incredibly short sighted and possibly the final nail for business in the centre as there is such little access (parking predominantly) for people now. - The lack of credible Tertiary Education. I'm afraid UHI (which didn't exist when I left) or Inverness College are not an option to most people with ambition. For the majority of Invernessian youngsters, the ONLY option when they leave school is to leave the city. The knock on effect for jobs of any real value is that they tend not to exist. IMO, if Inverness wants to be taken seriously as a City, a University has to be a priority. Preferably not this crazy e-learning/distance option either. A real University with a campus and a student community which would help to take the city to the next step both culturally and economically. Reasons to stay in Inverness: - Quality of life is excellent. Clean air and all the opportunities to enjoy outdoor activities you could want. - Excellent leisure facilities. Similar to quality of life point. The membership options at Inverness Leisure are outstanding value in compared to similar facilities across the country. The only real negative is the out-dated and frankly dangerous 'astroturf' surface. That really requires updating. - Low crime rates make Inverness an safe place to live and a major consideration if choosing to settle long term. In short, I feel very glad I grew up in Inverness, as opposed to Glasgow/Edinburgh etc. However, personally I do not see it as a long term option, mainly as I feel I have outgrown the place and a lot of my peers who elected to stay and have become entrenched in the small town mentality (and often with kids in tow before their 21st birthdays...) which is still far too prevalent in the area. A nice beginning but certainly not for life!

I thought i was a pretty awful game to watch myself... Neither team did much in the final third, the first half was ours and the second half definitely theirs. Not entertaining stuff at all, pretty hard work and as soon as Thistle equalised it was always going to penalties. Plus points - defence looked a lot stronger, certainly more confident. There wasn't the sharp intake of breath every time our left back got the ball! Golly looked solid and fit, touch wood that continues. Granty looked lot more comfortable yesterday too and Bulvitis continues to improve. If the 5 at the back (Esson, Tokely, Munro, Bulvitis, Golabek) stay injury free and settle then it looks promising for a good defensive season, lot of cool, experienced heads in there. Still not convinced by the midfield though, maybe it's a experience thing - Hayes, Stratford, Cox, Eagles are all pretty young and and without much first team time anywhere else. I'd like to see 4-3-3 and how that would work, Duncan or McBain coming in to add experience to the midfield with Stratford and Cox then Foran as a target man with Hayes and Eagles going up the sides and sitting on the opposition full backs. If the defence is solid we can afford the 'extra' attacker and probably makes us bit more difficult to play than most teams in this division who play a strict 4-4-2.

Probably on a par with Brown and miles better than Fraser who I really never rated. How he got a move to Motherwell I'll never know, although he seems to have been bombed out a bit there. That final save in the pens when it got to his left and pushed the shot onto the crossbar was awesome, absolute top drawer stuff! He certainly enjoyed it too!