Huisdean

True but in the heat of the moment and when you are disappointed, easier said that done when some idiot shouts abuse at you. There were a few comments from fans at the end of the game directed at Butcher from the main stand that were just ridiculous. Some fans really do need to get a grip and take a long hard look at themselves. I wonder why some of them even come to see us as some of these fans I have yet to hear shout anything positive or encouraging towards the team at all.

What messing with the defence??. No subs made to that area, only Devine coming on to strengthen the midfield where we were styarting to come under pressure. Had we won the game, that substitution would haver been viewed as correct. As someine ahs already said, it was not the timing or niumber of subs, just we couldn't take our chances, end of story (and a blatant penalty!)

I think both these posts seem to nail what is happening, attendance wise bang on the head. As Renegade says, the town doesn't appear to lve the club. Why that is, I don't know but maybe I can give an example. Yesterday, 2 rows back from where I was sitting, there was one loud fan who started moaning from the first minute. After 10 minutes, I had to turn round to say him, why do you bother supporting ICT when all you have done is moan and some of my fellow fans then started to back me up. I know yesterday was a poor performance, can't remember the last time I felt so let down by the performance, but that incident is typical of a lot of fans whose negativity knows no bounds and I am sur ewere down fans who are more positive.

Think we definitely need the new manager appointes as soon as possible as he will have his own ideas on players that should be used. I do think we need to blood, not necessarily younger players but uncapped players who have potential and give them a run in the team while retaining a core of older more experienced players as well.That was the problem with Levein and many of his predecessors that they refused to blood younger/uncapped players which will only come back to haunt you in the end. Would Levein have played Rhodes last night if he was in charge, I doubt it and ebven if he didn't havea great game, he still scored two goals. Now is the chance for the new manager to remove the deadwood from the squad and get Scotalnd on the up again

4-3-3 will not work as a formation as Motherwell will simply overun us in midfield with numbers. It will also only work, in my opinion, if the other team plays the same formation which simply will not happen. The constant change of formations has to be avoided as it causes more problems than it solves. Let's find a formation that works and suits the palyers we have and stick to it.

Totally agree. This just gives an unfair advantage to two teams who already disadvantage the rest of Scottish football enough

IHE is right, Easter Road is a much better venue than Hampden which would be nowhere near full and devoid of atmosphere. Only other option would be Pittodrie which I would prefer if only as both teams then have to travel (but doesn't have the additional benefits Johndo suggests, well [perhaps one of them!)

I think HeilanDee has hit the nail on the head. Gone, or certainly going, are the days of the die hard supporter who attends week in week out no matter what the team is doing. Fans are much more fickle now and everybody wants to be seenm as an individual, not follow the "tribal" layalty of a football fan. There are also so many alternatives to football now, that were not always available in the past, that it is a lot easier to find another option fror something to do on a Saturday than going to watch a game.

Thats exactly where the problem lyes. The overwhelming majority of People just dont care. Why is that? I think price is the biggest bugbear Don't agree at all that price is the biggest bugbear. It is to those who want to attend but cannot afford it financially but there are many people in Inverness who can afford to attend and do so when it suits them. That is their right but, as Caley D has alluded to, many appear to just constantly moan/take from the club rather than give something back. That "giving something back" can be in many forms such as attending more games, volunteering to help the club, buying merchandise etc. Heaven forbid we get relegated or suffer severe finacial difficulties because of the apathy of large sections of the public in Inverness as you can be sure there will be a lot of "public" support at that point but it will be too late. Inverness will get the team and level of football it deserves if attendances do not start to pick up.

but.............as I have said on another thread, if referees get the basic decisions correct, this negates a lot of the media attention that they get. Why a referee cannot get the basics correct is beyond me. Brine's performance in the second hald was astonishingly poor and could have cost us the game on another night. The goal gave County a great lift which they would not otherwise have got. The fact that they were poor and unable to take advantage of the many dodgy decisions that went their way should not mask the impact Brines had on the game in the second half. His poor refereeing effectively made the game a lot poorer in the second half.

Fillu appreciate where you are coming from and your point about players and referees having an off day is well made. However the referees can help themselves in some areas and that is by getting the basic decisions correct in games. How often do we see blatant fouls not given, throw ins/corners given to the wrong team etc etc. I think if referees got the basic decisions correct, this would diffuse a lot of the flak they are getting now. Of course there will always be contraversial decions where the refreee has to call it as he sees it without the benefit of seeing 10 replays but I would argue that if the really basic errors you see week in week out from referess were cut out, the situation would improve. I also think the media have a lot to answer for as, with all the replays they have, they can and do have a go at referees rarely indicating that the refreee could not see the incident how the multiple cameras have caught it. Something has to be done to improve the quality of refrees however and the SFA have to take the lead on that. Just quietly dropping them down a level/grade does nothing. I also think the SFA is hugely culpable with the younger referees coming through by turning them into virtual robots. The younger referees seem to be brainwashed by the SFA that thye must referee in a certain way which takes away the refrees discretion to deal with certain situations. If a refereee did that nowadays, he would probably be marked down hweres in days gone by, common sense would have been exercised by the referee but they are now too afraid to do this.

Only a yellow, I genuinely don't know if that is good or bad from you IHE!!

Some interesting debate on this but the bottom line is that refereeing performances are getting worse, not just in Scotland, but nothing seems to be done to discipline or improve the referees. I think managers should have the right to comment on referee's performance as it can have a huge impact on games. The referee yesterday was hopeless, easily the worst I have seen at home this season but fortunately we won so not much comment on this from posters. Despite a very very poor performance, he walks off the park smiling, pockets more than a lot of the players and faces no comeback on his many poor decisions. Something has to be done on the standard of refereeing otherwise most managers will be sent to the stand.

The ref may have got the sending off correct but got our penalty wrong ( wasn't a penalty to me) and has been vindicated by Anderson' s sending off being rescinded. However, there is then a strong case of the referee realising that he had got the penalty wrong and denied the blatant penatly with Doran. There cannot be any excuse from the SFA or the ref on the denial of that penalty. So while Butcher may be correctly banned, what happens to the ref who did not perform well. Will the SFA tell us, will the feck. Until some referee gets obviously "disciplined" for poor performances, the standard of refereeing will continue to get worse

I agree with gingerjaggy that until the SPL format changes, that will have an impact on attendances. Not sure how much, and don't think this is the sole reason for our delining attendances but certainly a factor.

Give it a rest with all this "reason to believe" guff. If you know something, spit it out or don't bother posting as this adds nothing to the debate.

After 1 bad game this is siad. I despair!.

Yeah you can tell and that is why I have to disagree with a lot of what you say. Sure we deserved to get beat today but to say that the players didn't seem to care is totally wrong. I thought the players did try and we simply got beat by the better team on the day. Losing the first goal early really killed us I think but to totally slate the players and management team as you have done, is just symtomatic of so many posters who cannot see any good in anything the team do. I agree with you about Raven though, Meekings has to start next week along with Nick ross if he is fit. I actually think Sutherland was more involved today than in previous games but he seems to be really lacking confidence. I also thought the central defenders did not too bad, especially Warren in the second half but they do seem to have a tendancy to get caught square. Final word on the crowd today, lack of home support is shocking. Don't want to hear the usual excuses from some posters, either you support the team or you don't and go to the games as otherwise, there will come a time when we have no team to support.

Well said Davie. Get out and support the team

Why all the moans about red cards all of a sudden. We are not the only team to have had them this season and the majority I have seen have been very soft indeed, another ref may not have sent some of these players off. As for us, OTJs was a simple rush of blood to the head, out of character in the games i have seen him play but this sometimes happened and he deserved to be sent off. As for Foran's tackle, debateable if it was a sending off but quite simply, he mistimed a tackle in my opinion and did not deliberately seek to injure an opponent. Sometimes you will get a yellow, sometimes a red but the abuse OTJ and Foran have been getting from some posters is way over the top.

It will be interesting to see what impact this has on the attendance as this will affect County supports to who travel from all over Ross-shire. I don't think this game will sell out now but hopefully will be proved wrong.

That is what I was going to ask before I was so rudely interrupted !! Can some body with a footballing brain, qualified or unqualified attempt to clarify what exactly went wrong. As I posted after the Midden match my concern was that our system was positive but if the likes of unqualified peeple such as maself can suss how it works and where the potential flaws are then what about the more qualified peeple ? I was hoping that a home game would provide me / us with a concept of what Plans B,C and D would be - how we could change the system quickly if necessitated. As Alex states it is not what we do but how we are able to change the system and style. Some teams do this time after time and often in relation to the opposition. Or was it simply a case of some players playing poorly - or out of position - or not used to playing with each other etc., etc., etc. Killie definately changed their tactics although not sure if this was deliberate or whether forced by their injuries. This seemed to push us further and further back, again don't know whether this was down to Killie or players decided easier to sit back and defend. We did defend well but the promlem with playing so deep was that there was then no outlet and inevitably the ball ended up back with Kilmarnock. Certainly you could hear fans telling the team to get up the pitch, and I think Terry and Mo as well but we seemed to lack a leader or someone on the pitch to put that into operation. After ithe initial spell, we also got overun in midfield as kilmarnock seemed to flood this and often we only OTJ and Draper gainst several Kille players. Sutherland and Doran did track back sometimes but generally only in the wide areas leaving too mucg space in the middle of the park. Altough generally passed off the park for long spells, little cutting edge from Killie and we certainly had the better chances but didn't take them. My one major worry is that, at the moment, I don't think we have a plan B to change tactics although that may be down to the new players getting used to our system. I also think the system we have doesn't work particularly well at home but we don't seem to be able or want to change this. I say all this from a fans perspective, not with any insight as a coach but it does worry me that we are a bit one dimensional in terms of tactics/systems.

Totally agree with your last paragraph. Nobody can ever "guarantee" entertainment at a football match but as long as the team shows desire, commitment and passion on the pitch, then they will get my support. Speaking to some Aberdeen supporters after the RC game, they said there was precious little entertainment from both sides yet the fans backed their respective teams to the hilt during the game.

Bait Red Snapper perhaps?

With all due respect Dad, that's not what's happening here. A contrary opinion isn't necessarily a tirade. What is happening is that some people are clouding the issues by using fairly ridiculous hyperbole and personalisation and people respond to that rather than the content of the argument. I think that the way things are going points to a fairly fundamental split emerging in the fans and what they want. Are we to be a lower league highland sourced club, or are we a cosmopolitan one? Are we prepared to live with the consequences of another relegation because we play cavalier football? Are we prepared as a support to take a share of the responsibility if it doesn't pan out? Or do we want a club that challenge in the SPL with the rules that come with it? Your choice, but I just hope that the club survives the choices that seem to be currently being made. I think this hits the nail on the head very well. The choice does appear to be boiling down to this and apathy from the footballing public of Inverness. Oh and one more point, while we all like to be entertained when we go to see football, it never has and never will be guaranteed when attending a football match (well maybe if you support Barcelona). The excuse from some posters that they are not going back until the team becomes more entertaining doesn't wotk for me anymore and certainly not at this stage of the season