dead_ball_specialist

He's scored 70 goals in 96 starts for rangers and 7 goals in 14 starts for scotland yet he struggles to get a game for either. The second top goalscorer in the history of the SPL (currently behind only larsson) is about to move to the english first division for pennies. It's a funny old game, especially on a day where spurs just spent 15 million quid on jermaine defoe. This could be the beginning of the end for Walter Smith. The huns fans worship Boyd. Who are they going to replace him with? Another Walter smith special is lined up no doubt (eric bo anderson, peter van vossen, oleg salenko, marco negri etc)

I remember a Highland league select Vs Scotland U21s match at Telford Street.

I agree with that, Steve Paterson assembled a fantastic squad of talented, hard working footballers who almost anybody could have inherited and achieved success with. Robertson also signed some good players in his stint. But the squad has started to wither away, and the buck stops with the manager. Alan Morgan, Dennis Wyness, Richie Hart and Barry Wilson were all talented, hard working players (like most pele signings) who did an excellent job for ICT but were foolishly jettisoned leaving a void that hasn't been filled.

Save your money for the replay. (if we are lucky)

----------------------------Esson---------------------------- ---Proctor----------Duff-----------Munro-------McBain---- ---Tokely--------Duncan---------Vigurs------Sutherland- -----------------Wood------------Barrowman--------------- Our current system is comprehensively failing, we really need to ring some changes. Black, Cowie and Imrie have been off the boil for a while now and all need some bench time. Zander Sutherland will add a hunger and a fresh impetus to our midfield. We couldn't score in a brothel at the moment, he would at least cause opposing defenders some problems and create some chances for our strikers. Our 'settled back 4' is awful and quickly needs to be unsettled. Hastings is going through a bad spell, Roy McBain is an accomplished left back who would bring more to the side going forward. Easy switch. Proctor and Munro aren't working as a partnership, Duff was excellent in his previous spell earning several MOTM awards and improving every week, only Brewster will know why Proctor has been played ahead of him in recent weeks but whatever he was trying to achieve has failed. Again an easy switch. Perhaps playing Tokely on the right wing with Proctor in behind him would be a gamble, but I don't see what we have to lose? Quite frankly, our results (L L L L L L) literally couldn't be any worse. Tokely is probably our most dangerous attacking player. If he had a solid right back behind him that would give him liscence to concentrate on getting up the park. He'd also add a steel to our midfield that we've perhaps been lacking. In summary Tokely on the right wing would help us both defensivly and going forward (in theory) perhaps he has had a couple of mediocre performances in midfield in the past but give him a chance to settle there and I'm sure he'd do a job.

It's deja vu all over again. When the lights went out in the first half they should have just left them off, we wouldn't have witnessed the dross that was to come and could all have gone home happy. There really was nothing between the teams in the first half. We looked solid at the back, and we played some good football without really threatening to score. But as always we conceded right at the start of the second half. I actually said to my mates at half time "what are the odds of us undoing all that good work and conceding our trademark soft goal in the first 5 minutes?" Wham bam thankyou mam that's exactly what happened and as usual, as soon as ICT fall behind we panic, lose our shape, lose our composure and completely capitulate. Does Craig Brewster actually do post-match interviews or do BBC Scotland just use a tape recording? He says exactly the same thing every week. The man is utterly monotonous and boring, no wonder the players always come out half-asleep following his half time team talk. Ian Black and Don Cowie were hardly in the game. Perhaps they weren't really fit, perhaps they aren't bothered about playing for ICT, either way they were 'pants' (Players Aren't Trying Sufficiently) Any positives? Roy McBain had an excellent game out on the right (why on earth was he playing there?) and created our best chance of the match (a sitter for Vigurs) with an excellent dribble and cross. Ryan Esson kept the scoreline respectable. Russel Duncan worked harder than anyone on the pitch, he covered so much ground (covering for out of position defenders, fighting the midfield battle, supporting attacks) it was as if he was doing 2 or 3 jobs at once. If every ICT player played with his commitment we would be in the top 6. Andy Barrowman had a fine game as lone striker. He worked hard, put in some good challenges, forced errors, and usually held and distributed the ball well, although he received poor service and little support throughout. Fair play to him, I thought he was a waste of space but on todays showing he could do a job for us. One swallow doesn't make s summer though (I'm sure lots of ICT fans remember Rory McAllisters dream game against celtic a while back where he looked like a superstar) It's all very well putting on a performance in front of the live TV cameras but he has to try that hard EVERY week.

I hope we don't draw QOTS in the cup.

Are you really saying you think there is no difference between the Kadima party and Hamas? I'm not pro-Israel, far from it. I just get the impression that too many people have a simplistic black and white view of whats going on in that region. Israel = aggressor, Palestinian = victim. Hamas' covenant states that "so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences" are "in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement", stating "there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad".[64] (wikipedia) How do you negotiate with people like that? This is a group that sends children on suicide bombing missions, and injects them with HIV beforehand to try to infect any survivors. Freedom fighters? Not in my book. Blame for the suffering in that region has to be aportioned to both sides in good measure. Israel-bashing isn't the solution, it just reinforces Israeli's victimhood complex / siege mentality.

The Palestinians elected a terrorist group with anti-semitic genocide in it's constitution to govern them. They're firing thousands of rockets into Israeli towns and cities attempting to kill as many Israelis as they can. What would you do if you were an Israeli? How would you deal with this problem? Let's be realistic. I'm not saying Israel is doing the right thing, but it's easy for us to sit on our high horses from over here.

John 'jelly belly' Beaton is probably one of the most universally liked characters in inverness football. He would probably be a better DOF than Bennet but that isn't saying much. I still don't understand how on earth Grassa got that gig.

1) Steve Paterson 2) John Robertson 3) Derek Adams

Marius Niculae was top of the SPL individual shots on goal stats but most of the time he couldn't hit a barn door with a banjo. Quantity doesn't mean anything unless it's accompanied by quality.

It'd be interesting if we had a 'stand up if you hate brewster' chant. I wonder how many fans would stand up?

---------------------Esson------------------------ --Tokely-------Duff------Munro------McBain--- --------------------Duncan----------------------- ---Sutherland------------------Vigurs----------- ---------------------Black------------------------ ---------Rooney------------Wood---------------

What little hitler deleted the anti-brewster chants thread? Thanks a bunch.

To the tune of 'there's only one dennis wyness' There's only one Craigey Brewster, One Craigey Brewster, We used to be alright, But now we're sh1te, Walking in a Brewster blunderland

Imrie's off, thank f*ck for that... For some reason I have a good feeling about our chances in this second half. I predict 4-2 Inverness

I'm actually pretty pleased that we're trying something new. 4-5-1 just wasn't doing it for us. It might not be such a bad formation for attacking, it'll give our full backs licence to get up the park. Let's wait and see how it works out before we pass judgment.

I have a feeling Craig Brewsters post match interview will go something like this... "I thought we started brightly... The boys looked up for it... There wasnae anything between the teams... Then they go up the park and score 5 goals... It's frustrating."

He isn't rangers class. No doubt this story is a result either of lazy journalism or Cowies agent trying to hype his man up with a bit of dodgey used car salesmanship. I remember many moons ago Phil McGuires agent claimed he was being watched by liverpool. The reality is, Cowie has been tosh this season and could probably do with being dropped for a while. Perhaps he isn't quite the player he first appeared to be, or maybe his early success has gone to his head. Either way on his current form he wouldn't be a great loss.

I think he's trying to "sit down, shut up" ICT fans with a dose of "you can't compete with big clubs like us". It brings flashbacks of Charlie Christie's infamous "just the fact that we're in the SPL means we're overachieving / punching above our weight blah blah blah" post match interviews. The fact is, there's more to football than money. Previous ICT managers / squads have achieved great success against so-called bigger clubs. I see no reason why we can't aspire to finish above a team like aberdeen. They may have a bigger budget than us, as do most SPL teams, but they're still sh*te. So are Falkirk, Hamilton, St Mirren, Kilmarnock and Motherwell. None of these teams can go out and sign quality players, and any time a good one emerges it's only a matter of time until they're poached by an english third division side. So money isn't exactly the be all and end all, especially at the lower end (i.e. scottish football) nobody can sign superstars. What counts is knowing how to build, nurture, organize, motivate and develop a TEAM. Other SPL clubs don't have an absolute comparative advantage over us in any of these respects and we shouldn't fear any of them. As we've seen in the past, a half decent ICT team playing the right way is capable of humping these teams, and on a good day, Hibs, Hearts and Dundee Utd to boot. Even the old firm aren't exactly invincible anymore.

It's starting to become apparent that brewster doesn't have what it takes to fix the problems with the team, ideally we'd want someone to come in with a bit of charisma and some new ideas to freshen the place up. Our current form is as bad as the run of results that preceded the resignation of Charlie Christie. Can anyone honestly say we've made progress since brewster came back? I don't think so. The average age of our first team has decreased, fitness levels have improved, but that's about it. Those calling for a 'total clearout from top to bottom' are fools. I don't think we're that far off being a good team, our problems are mainly psychological and tactical. We have a very talented young squad (brew deserves some credit for signing imrie, rooney and esson, and promoting vigurs, sutherland and duff) with lots of potential. Yes we are crying out for an experienced defender / striker and a new home system, but wholesale changes to our playing squad are not required IMHO. For whatever reason (motivation, communication, tactics, organization, training etc) the current manager simply isn't getting the best out of our players and as a team ICT are playing far beneath the level they have shown they are capable of in spells in the recent past. Ian Mcall, Mauris Malpas, Billy Stark, Craig Brown, Paul Lambert, Sandy Clarke and Jimmy Nichol are all absolutly useless and shouldn't even be on the radar sceen quite frankly. If anything they would take us backwards! John Robertson knows the side well and would be an instant hit with the vast majority of fans so I think he's the most sensible option. Ideally I'd like to see Steve Paterson back as I think he's a far more talented manager than Robbo, but with his recent personal problems I doubt he will be considered unfortunatly.

Good to see that police resources are being used sensibly, the north stand is a hotbed of political radicalism and potential terrorist activity.

Craig Brewster clearly does not have a clue. 4-5-1 at home has given us the worst home record in the SPL yet he persists in playing exactly the same system every week. Can't he see what everybody else sees? Doesn't he have ANY other ideas? The team has looked lethargic, fragile, disorganized, clueless in the final third, and utterly stale at TCS for months. Theres an obvious pattern here. Doesn't he analyse our performances on video? What the hell does he do all week? Our home performances have exactly the same shortcomings every week and NOTHING is changed. The manager isn't doing his job.

Lol it sounded like about 12 guys chanting to me, but given how few home fans there were today that probably wasn't all that far off from being half of the north stand. I was suprised by how LITTLE abuse Brewster actually received. He got off very lightly IMHO.