RiG

I had mentioned this on P & B and a poster there said that apparently Ross was wanting to try his hand abroad. Has this been mentioned in the local press?

Being held to ransom by Buckie Thistle. Jesus wept.

For those that think time is up for Raven is the same not true of Warren who had an even poorer season last year? I don't think Raven would get back in at RB. Seedorf has impressed there but what about playing him (Raven) on the left and move Calder further forward? Chalmers hasn't looked great on the few times I've seen him and Clader has looked iffy defensively but reasonable getting forward to play crosses in.

Is the Victorian Market not pushed as some kind of tourist attraction to some degree? If so, and I am probably imaging it, a wee shop in there could be an idea. Last time I went through the place there was a load of empty units although I seem to recall folk saying the rents are quite high in there. It would certainly tick the "location" box anyway and you wouldn't need to take a massive one (oo er) on.

The whole team will do sadly. It's not just personnel who have changed but our formation and style of football have been altered as well. You could see players weren't quite on the same wavelength at times on Saturday with passes being played in the opposite direction of where a player was running. It's going to take a while for them to click together. The sooner they do the better obviously.

I'd need to look again at more recent figures but the last time we were relegated we lost almost 1,000 fans from the average attendance. Obviously a fair chunk of this will be smaller away supports but there will also be a fair reduction in home support this season as well. I think our average crowd was maybe around 3,500 last season? If we can keep it around 3,000 this season we'll be doing very well indeed.

Getting a sense of deja vu here...

That post from Chris covers a lot of the main points from last night. Completely agree that Calder and Chalmers should swap if they are both playing down the left flank again. For a while Chalmers was playing on the right side of midfield last night and looked pretty ineffective. When he switched back to the left he looked strong defensively but struggled to really get any crosses into the box when attacking. Calder looked like much more of an attacking threat when he went down the left side but was lazy at times when trying to get back to defend. Polworth will be hung out to dry if he continues to be played as a wide midfielder. Hopefully another wide player is being targeted along with an attacking central midfielder to try and provide us with a bit of spark in the final third (so many clichés). We struggled to break down the Albion defence last night with most of our chances coming from long balls forward. A Ryan Christie or Andrew Shinnie type player would have been extremely useful. Even a Doran type figure behind the strikers if not wide to relieve Polworth. Zschusschen did okay but missed an easy chance when Baird cut the ball back from him and he somehow skewed a shot wide from about 6 yards. Hopefully with some game time he will get up to speed. Seedorf did well for most of the game and Vigurs also impressed but wasn't necessarily anything extraordinary. Draper looked increasingly lost as the game wore on. The penalties were probably the highlight of the game simply due to how awful they were.

Might be worth remembering that Brechin played this game without 5 or 6 first team regulars. A solid win no doubt with some good performances but I suspect we'll be facing a very different Brechin side in the future. Mulraney looked a real threat and hopefully he can have a storming season for us. Strange to see us playing 4-4-2 after so many seasons of, well, not. Didn't realise Baird was so small.

According to this piece in the Courier another player has been told that they are free to go. http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/Sport/Football/Caley-Thistle-add-Joe-Chalmers-as-John-Robertson-warns-suitors-off-Ross-Draper-13072017.htm Seems to be a fair few rumours around that Raven is set to leave so perhaps it's him.

I wondered if it might have been Nigel Hasselbaink but I think he's signed for a Greek team or something.

GoalkeepersOwain Fon WilliamsRyan EssonMark RidgersDefendersGarry WarrenBrad MckayDavid RavenCarl TremarcoRiccardo Calder Collin Seedorf Matty Elsdon Joe Chalmers Midfielders Ross Draper Liam Polworth Ian Vigurs Aaron Doran Jake Mulraney Zachary Elbouzedi Forwards John Baird George Oakley Adutch Striker

Joe Chalmers has now signed. Dutch striker arriving later...

I'm fully aware that a lot of the work was done a) by volunteers and b) off their own back with no salary, freebies etc. It's of course highly commendable and I've said so in the past but I'm happy to repeat it - the media team did a really excellent job pulling together highlights of the odd game, interviews before and after games and of course with the Twitter updates. The recent addition of live streaming games to overseas supporters is also excellent and has been widely commended on here. However, I stand by my feeling that it was, at times, something of a closed shop to outsiders. Twice either I or someone else had offered to do the Twitter updates for games were one of the regulars couldn't make it and each time we received a quite terse rejection. I'm sorry to hear that you felt like you wanted to leave it all behind and do something else but if the club, media team or whoever need some extra hands to help out I'm sure there would be willing volunteers. Maybe I've missed the calls for additional support on the media side of things (and indeed any other times the club has asked for an extra pair of hands) but if it's an ongoing plea for assistance, and it sounds like it is, maybe it would be an idea to have a section on volunteering on the club website with some of the opportunities that could be on offer for both home and away games?

The man himself confirmed this last week. Sorry to see him go. I hope we do as well as possible in every game we play but if we patch the League Cup but just use it to get fitness up and have a (semi) decent league run I'd be happy enough with that. Like the Challenge Cup the League Cup is fast becoming a competition that means nothing until you get to the latter stages so I wouldn't be bothered if we struggled so long as performances were decent and we use it to turn in a good league campaign. Totally agree. Social media is the place where people go for news now and as such having a good presence on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc is really important for clubs. There's absolutely no doubting that what Don and others did to raise the profile of the club through their Twitter antics was largely a good thing save for some minter episodes like the SuperBowl commentary. For the most part the info put out there was well received, informative and very funny. The club definitely benefited from this. However, if there was one criticism to be made it was that the people who were involved appeared to be opposed to anyone else joining in and helping out. Something of a "it's my ball" attitude at times. Obviously you don't want to be giving out a password for a club account to just anyone but sometimes it felt as though those involved didn't want anyone else involved which, ironically, is probably what we need now. I completely understand that when you've worked on something for so long and built it up, in this case from pretty much nothing, that you would be hesitant to see someone else come in and potentially ruin it all but I couldn't help but shake the feeling that at times, whilst additional hands would have been welcomed, they weren't really wanted. Maybe I've picked things up wrong, it wouldn't be the first time, but that's just how I see it.

According to Clach it is:

Absolutely howling performance today. I know it's just a pre season friendly but still...

So our 'realistic' first team squad is something this then? Goalkeepers Owain Fon Williams Ryan Esson Mark Ridgers Defenders Garry Warren Brad Mckay David Raven Carl Tremarco Riccardo Calder Collin Seedorf Matty Elsdon Midfielders Ross Draper Liam Polworth Ian Vigurs Aaron Doran Jake Mulraney Zachary Elbouzedi Forwards John Baird George Oakley

Elsdon loan deal is six months with an option to extend to the end of the season. Confirmed by the player and the manager apparently.

So is this roughly the areas of the squad that we've strengthened? Mark Ridgers - GK Riccardo Calder - DL (also midfield?) Collin Seedorf - DC (also midfield?) Matty Elsdon - DC Zachary Elbouzedi - MR John Baird - ST George Oakley - ST

Last time I trust what Jamie Durent says then

Six months.

Another defender signs, this time on loan. A quick Google for the lad seems to indicate that he is 20 years old and a CB.