RiG

Not a fan of a document referring to supporters as "customers".

If it was to continue... Pre Partick Thistle - 1/2

I for one am stunned that the Inverness Courier is going down the clickbait route.

Duffy and Harper were the full backs. Carson was in the middle with Allardice. Henderson and MacKay were the wide men. Shaw played as a ten.

That was one sided a contest as I've seen for a while. Queens Park were streets ahead of us for large parts of that match. Decent opening to the game with Eze missing two glorious chances when he had free headers from corners but he would eventually get his goal later. It was surprising that we didn't really seem to know how to counter him and were content to keep letting him win header after header almost scoring each time. Danny MacKay had a great chance to open the scoring after a nice phase of passing play saw him scamper in behind the Queens back line but he lost his footing and shot right at Ferrie. But he was to open the scoring when a long ball forward bounced off the back of Mckay and Mackay raced onto it to place a wonderful low shot beyond Ferrie at full stretch to give us the lead. Queens seemed to lose their way after this for the rest of the first half but regained their composure in the second and utterly dominated the rest of the match. The equaliser arrived when a cross from the ICT right found Savoury in acres of space with no ICT defender near him and he placed his wider beyond Ridgers to bring QP level. Despite this being the umpteenth warning to us to try and defend crosses into the box we decided to, erm, not do this and instead let Eze have another header from a cross almost unchallenged and he found the net this time to put the home side ahead. Mckay and Devine had decent chances for us to head in equalisers and Samuels fired a late effort right at Ferrie but Queens were easily deserving of the win especially as we ran out of ideas and blootered long balls to Mckay to try and win against tow defenders with an average height of about 8 ft. Bizarre decision to sub Allardice when he was probably our best midfielder and Samuels continues to be quite unimpressive in his outings. MacGregor got a few minutes before appearing to catch his studs in the pitch and had to be taken off inured so that's swell. We just didn't seem able to cope with the intensity and pace of Queens Park who moved the ball so quickly whilst we were relatively slow and ponderous when we had it. The gulf between the sides was there for all to see. Even if Queens don't win the league I'd imagine they will fancy their chances to go all the way in the playoffs and it's hard to argue they don't deserve it.

Sadly life got in the way for us again recently but we've finally gotten round to getting a new pod out and it's a mahoosive one to compensate. Interviews with Billy Dodds, Jay Henderson, Scottish Cup chat (recorded before the KO time and prices were revealed), game review, Section 94, Guess Who and some other goodies to keep you going.

Pretty sure the prices need to be agreed between the four clubs. I say pretty sure but what I mean is my mate told me and I am inclined to trust what he says.

Those prices...

Pre Queens Park - 4

Suspect your best bet is to phone someone in the club shop.

Carson's booking was exceptionally harsh. Armstrong (I think) threw himself to the ground as he did on multiple occasions last night. I thought Sean Welsh turned in one of his best ever performances for us. He was everywhere and when he went forward he was a real creative spark with a nice flicked pass to Mckay (which he should have scored from) as well as hitting the bar and almost bagging another goal when he just missed a low cross from Shaw. obviously he scored a goal but he could easily have had a hat trick and an assist or two. He was magnificent.

Yeah the Ayr setup was pretty impressive. Bar area was busy but service was quick and they had an outdoor spot with astroturf / artificial grass and a good number of picnic style benches with a van that seemed to be serving pizzas and other hot food. Would definitely go back there rather than any pubs in the town especially if you get off at Newton on Ayr.

We lined up with what looked like a 4-2-3-1. Ridgers - Delaney Deas Devine Duffy - Welsh Allardice - Henderson Carson Shaw - Mckay. Henderson started on the left after recently featuring on the right, Carson played as a 10 instead of Shaw who was shifted to the right flank whilst Duffy and Delany were the appointed full backs. Pretty even opening to the game but we gifted Ayr the opener when Delaney failed to clear the ball and it was nabbed off him by O'Connor and he found Akinyemi free i the 6 yard area with a low cross and he easily beat Ridgers from close range. Fortunately we equalised relatively quickly as a Henderson free kick looked to be missed by the Ayr defence and the ball landed close to Welsh in the box and he spun on the spot and swept the ball into the net. The main talking point was the red card for O'Connor which Ayr are claiming was harsh but at the time I thought it was the right call. Initially I thought it was Welsh who challenged O'Connor but I see reports saying it was Duffy. Regardless, both players lunged in committed to the tackle but as O'Connor seemed to have his foot lifted slightly off the ground it meant he overshot the ball slightly and carried through into Duffy's shin which looked pretty bad. The red card was out in a couple of seconds and we had the advantage. Duffy should have put us ahead before the break when he had a free header in the box but he sent it wide of goal and he had another decent effort with a shot that was well saved by the Ayr keeper. Second half was pretty open with both sides threatening. You'd have been hard pressed to tell which side had a man less at times as Ayr looked pretty threatening at various points without forcing Ridgers into many saves. Akinyemi was a handful for Deas and Devine who struggled to deal with him at times. McAlear and Ashford had decent changes that were either wide or over the bar. At times we played some nice football. Most of the threat seemed to come down the right especially after Henderson and Shaw rotated and, with the extra man, Duffy and Delaney started pushing further up the pitch to offer support. Ayr tended not to double up on the wide men so it meant that Henderson or Shaw had to beat one many and they had a chance to get a cross in. Henderson in particular was tormenting the Ayr defence and he had the best chance for us before we scored when he wriggled through a ruck of players at the edge of the box and lashed an effort over the bar. But he goal when Shaw beat his man on the left flank and sent a high ball across goal which Henderson collected at the back post and he managed to steer a shot past the keeper and defenders on the line. Some solid performances from us to win that one today with Duffy, Carson and Henderson probably the pick of the bunch. Duffy was helped out by Mullin going off injured and also the fact that Ayr played a lot of the game a man down. Carson took a bit of time to adapt to the 10 position but he carried the ball forward well and could have had a goal himself had he been more selfish and taking a shot instead of passing to a team mate. Despite their struggles Killie will be a different beast. Today was a good win and the best performance from the last 4 games I've seen but these are pretty low bars and we will need to improve again if we want to try and get through to the SF.

Pre Killie - 2

Probably a question that takes the thread OT but I've always wondered how we didn't attract the same kind of backing during our more successful years and have tended to be a bit of a basket case off the field.

Statement klaxon!

These eye watering losses kicked in as soon as we were relegated (Nareystoepoker has a good tweet summarising the most recent losses). Parachute payments, and later COVID grants, softened the blow but it's clear that these losses were mounting up long before Gardiner arrived. That said, a lot of criticism is definitely justified and I don't disagree with your comments about the alienation of the fanbase and the farce that was the stadium gigs. I also agree that local businesses being burnt will haunt us for many a year to come and I believe that's why Grassa has been brought back to try and repair some of the damage. We've had a lot of hot air and very little substance over the last couple of years at least. As for your final query about what schemes have not failed I cannot think of one that has been a roaring success. The only ones that could maybe be passed off as a win would be small scale bob a jobs around the ground where local businesses maybe spruced up parts of the stadium in return for a free plug on the club website and social media but that is obviously no help to us whatsoever in the grand scheme of things.

We haven't started losing money since Gardiner arrived. It's been an issue before his time as well. Granted some of the schemes to generate additional revenue outside of football, whilst admirable, have largely fallen completely flat and "core" revenue generation methods (i.e. supporters) have been forgotten about or neglected leading to an utterly desperate situation but he's not the only person to blame here (though I think a lot does fall on his shoulders). Hard to see anything other than part time football for us in the next year or so.

That was in the 2021 accounts as well but our future projections were based on commercial parking opportunities and commercial events being realised. How did those concerts go again...?

£835k losses for May 2022, up by £600k from May 2021. Accounts Incredibly alarming...

The chant was the same as the ones opposition fans direct at Dodds.

A lot of the questions could really do with a N/A option. For example, attitude of club staff when purchasing a home ticket is irrelevant to someone like me who buys / renews their season ticket online with no interaction with anyone from the club.

Delany played on the left side of defence with Harper in front. Shaw continued to play as a 10 behind Samuels. Shaw certainly put in a lot of running but struggled to create much of note. Samuels was a nonentity for most of the game not helped by us shellacking long balls in his general direction. Carson was fine defensively but offered less going forward than he did against Hamilton on Tuesday.

Pre Ayr - 1

Dundee should have won that. Laughable offside(s), some good saves from Ridgers and bad misses saved us. We had some reasonable half chances ourselves but nothing compared to the Dees. Still, it was hilarious seeing the wee Ultra gimps celebrating their goal for about 3 minutes before twigging that it had been disallowed. No one really stood out for us I'd say. Samuels was utterly anonymous for the time he was on the pitch and showed what a miss Mckay is when we don't have him available. There wasn't much creative spark in that side apart from maybe Henderson and he faded after the equaliser. Not sure how Shaw stayed on for so long. I feel like Doran coming on and playing as a 10 was a sub we should have made long before he did actually arrive. Overall we still looked disjointed for large parts of the game and bereft of confidence. It's hard not to look at the players and question if they are really playing for the manager any more. It doesn't seem like it to me. The chants towards Dodds cannot have gone unnoticed by the club. Surely it's time to put him out of his misery.