RiG

ICT Twitter account has just said that we have signed Alex Fisher until the end of the season with an option for another year. EDIT: And he's available to play in the game today.

Source? Not doubting you but it would be good to know where this has been reported. EDIT: On the STV website - http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/inverness/1338256-inverness-ct-boss-confirms-loan-approach-for-celtics-anthony-stokes/

The Hootsman article is just a rehash of the Daily Mail piece. Again, no quotes other than those from Hughes months ago saying that Stokes was a good lad or something like that.

Not a single quote in that article suggests we are making a move. You've got to love journalists some times.

I bet the kids and Ayeseetee go in for free and he makes Mrs Ayeseetee pay £20

Fon Williams required treatment for an injury in the second half which accounted for a lot of that time.

Contact the club to get a refund on the tickets and make sure you get reimbursed for the £2 Royal Mail 'fine'.

Any chance of getting Harry Gows in as a sponsor?

Of course not but it's a tournament that if you go out in the early stages most fans will simply shrug their shoulders and get on with things. Until you get to the latter stages most fans don't give a damn about it.

Seems the most logical place for this post rather than creating a new thread: http://spfl.co.uk/news/article/latest-live-tv-games-announced-3/ Our game v Hearts on 30th January (brought forward to replace the Saint Johnstone fixture which was postponed due to their League Cup S/F appearance) has been changed to a 12:30 kick off. Additionally, our game v Aberdeen on 13th February has now been shifted to 15th February for a 19:45 kick off.

Caley Nod and myself had the same predicament however we were able to get a couple of celebratory drinks in before dashing to Edinburgh to see the MSP. Only missed the first song as well. Good stuff. I think it might have made a good game for TV but the Hearts v Aberdeen match was an obvious choice and with both Celtic and 'Rangers' almost always going to be picked up by Sky it's not much of a surprise that we aren't on the telly. Hopefully the 3pm kick off time will encourage a lot of folk to get down for it. Only a couple of hours on the train from Inverness so it's not exactly a mammoth journey.

Story in the Inverness Courier here: http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/Sport/Football/Caley-Thistle-to-have-new-sponsors-for-2016-17-season-08122015.htm I hadn't realised that we have had Subway as our sponsor for two seasons already. Anyone know how much this new deal is worth to the club?

Ah, I see. It will be interesting to see how the regionalisation of the teams works. Given how few teams are in our 'area' of the country I wonder how much variation in opponents we will get which I think is key for this kind of competition which has normally tended to see similar fixtures thrown up a lot. Look at the recent game v Ross county. A chance to get into the Semi Final of the League Cup final, a derby match and little over 3,000 folk turned up. I guess we will end up pooled with the Tayside and Angus teams.

Fairly on the the fence with this one. Not averse to changing things around but I would prefer to do away with the 'regionalisation'. This would be a good chance to see ICT (for example) playing some teams that we don't often get to face but instead we are likely to be paired up with Ross County (for even more derbies which have long since lost a lot of their appeal), Aberdeen and the Dundee sides. All a bit boring really. Potentially playing the likes of Peterhead, Elgin or Brora would be quite good but I think part of the beauty of any Cup competition is that you could face just about anyone. I think 'fixing' who you can and can't face detracts from that. I also think that having all the games in such close proximity to one another will reduce crowds at a time when a lot of people are on holiday and shelling out for so many games in a short space of time will put people off. And from a selfish point of view, because of the 'regionalisation' of the competition it's unlikely I'll be able to get to most of the games being down south which is a shame especially if we ended up playing a side which is somewhat more 'unique' than most. Excluding the European qualifiers from the tournament until the latter stages is odd too. They need match practice to get up to speed but all the other teams in Scotland will be tied up in this competition in July so no one will be free for friendlies so they'll need to look further afield for matches to get up to match fitness. Getting BT Sport on board is good, however I note again that the SPFL decline to say how much the deal is worth, and I quite like the penalty shoot out after a draw at the end of a game. I'm intrigued by the proposals but certainly not jumping up and down with excitement.

Game is off. Waterlogged pitch.

A clear sign that Hughes intends to release the entire squad.

Cringing at these comments. Can we get one of these guys for Hughes? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or8UhztOSH4

Storey wasn't signed by Hughes but fair enough on Ofere and Fon Williams. Tansey we largely knew about anyway but he has impressed since (re) signing. I hope that when the time does come to strengthen we look at some more creative and / or wide players. We desperately lack that now with the likes of Christie and Watkins away and Doran out injured.

Based on the players he has signed to date I have little confidence that he will spend it wisely. As for your comment on a restrictive budget it didn't seem to stop Butcher who ended up bringing in some very good players for us although there were plenty of duffers as well. The problem Hughes has is that he has yet to bring in a player who has really done well for us. Having more money available to him might help but it doesn't automatically equate to better players arriving at the club.

This is why I am distinctly meh about Hughes staying. His signings have been dreadful so far. Hope he gets a bit more backing from the board in the transfer market but equally he needs to be picking out better players for the club.

ICT Twitter feed has it but not the website. Great photo of Hughes on the Twitter story looking absolutely hanging

Meh. Went pretty much how a lot of folk thought it would do. Fair amount of possession for Inverness without really creating too much. Despite matching Celtic for long periods I always had a feeling that if they wanted to they could kick on and go up a couple of gears. I think we saw that when they ruthlessly exploited the space left by Tansey when he tried to chase down the ball but Celtic quickly moved the ball onto team mates then out wide before the lovely ball in for Griffiths to make it 2 - 1. Farce of a third goal. Probably was a handball but doesn't disguise the fact that the defending was horrendous. Disappointing defensively from us for the opener. McGregor must have been allowed to run for about 30 yards with no challenge. At least Storey continued his fine form with another goal. I love this kid. Really hope we can get him signed up but his form means that others will likely be sniffing around soon enough. I thought Polworth performed well for us. He's probably been our form player over the last few weeks. Disappointing also to see us persist with the tippy tappy pish at the back again. We seem to play ourselves into real danger at least once every week with this. Celtic were wise to this and typically had about four players pushed right up on our defenders at goal kicks including the two full backs near the touchline (who seem to provide our only real width in games these days. We are so narrow it beggars belief). Griffiths in particular was excellent at getting between either Warren or Devine and Fon Williams cutting off the simple pass back to the keeper from the CB and forcing them to go long and lose possession or try and force it wide to the full back who were marked tightly as well. We need to adapt to teams who do this to us. Also, Vigurs sponsors MotM?

ICT website mentioning this as well. http://ictfc.com/news/club-news/1666-ict-v-celtic-29-11-15