CaleyP

I don't think it will come to that anyway, i still think Dundee will win with us and county and qos fighting it out for 2nd. I think the top four will finish like this: 1st. Dundee (Will power their way to the leaue) 2nd. County (have now proved to be a good team) 3rd. Caley (We are gelling but need to be consistant for the rest of the season) 4th. QOS (Proved to be a sticky team to beat)

I also thought that, it wasn't just us that thought that though, Billy stark had him down as one of the best younsters in scotland in the paper a couple of months back. it is clear that we only play players that are on a wage at this club. If he was that good then surely there would have been bigger teams in for him when we released him. Not that big a loss for me and cant see him going onto bigger and better things Im sure your football knowledge is better than billy stark's...ha! it's people like you is the reason our youth isn't given a chance in the first team...no forsight.

Msybe the fact that some of the players are only 19 and still live locally with their parents etc. Peterhead would be a pain in the arse for them to travel to several times a week, therefore Elgin makes sense IMO. The players are more likely to get a game at elgin, they don't want to go to peterhead just to sit on a bench because that is what would happen and what use would that be. You also have to remember we don't choose who we send our young players out on loan to, the club have to be interested in taking the player on loan first before we ship them out.

zander sutherland. 2-1 against cove rangers

I also thought that, it wasn't just us that thought that though, Billy stark had him down as one of the best younsters in scotland in the paper a couple of months back. it is clear that we only play players that are on a wage at this club.

eh aye at any level... well done wee man :D no, Roscoe was called up when he was a teenager. Mark Brown, Ian Black & Craig Dargo all played for Scotland B against Turkey B up here in Inverness. Rory McAllister had played for Scotland under 19's when he was here and im sure there was someone else Guy Kerr also played for Scotland Under 16s. Or Under 17s. Dale got a 19's call up and iain vigurs had around 5 international caps for unders 19's

Dunfermline 3-3 Ross County - Vigurs got the 3rd

(Richie Foran in an interview with the Indy) When I read this I found it a little troubling, if it's actually true (i.e. our players are only training for 8 hours a week) then its a bl00dy disgrace!!! If Butcher is truly as angry as his post-match interview this week suggested, surely it's time he forced our under-perfoming players to do an honest days work. They're supposed to be full time professionals afterall. If we were under any illusions as to how difficult a challenge it was going to be to win this league, we certainly shouldn't be anymore. I don't think it's time for Butcher to go, but it's certainly time for him to work alot harder than he has hitherto. Two hours a day of training is normal for a full time football team, sometimes you'll get what we would call a double session where we'd have 2hours in the morning and 1and half in the afternoon but that would usually happen once a week. I wouldnt get too troubled over it as this is a normal training week for a full time club. I know now it was easy street full time football, but i hated double sessions, they were a killer, lazy i know. Basically footballers have it mega easy and usually a player won't realise that too much until they stop playing. In fairness there is only so much training you can do in a day.

I said 4th simply because our squad isn't good enough, and the team don't have a united spirit to make up for the lack of talent to win it so 4th.

Jeez, i thought i was the only one to complain about the pitch. My lawn has a shorter cut than that one. Essons feet sunk in that grass and i forgot how small a pitch it really is? The state of it was IMO the reason why Imrie and Hayes couldnt put their pace down. Oh come on all 22 players have to deal with the same conditions. Imrie just ain't that good. we were beat by better players that's all. next season we just need to make sure we bring in a management team that knows what they are doing and players that are good enough. if teams like, County, QOS, Raith and Partick can find good players why can't we. the players we have at the moment are not good enough, 2nd division at best bar a few of them. They pay more. Surely County don't pay more? Thing is though if we want to win the league then we will have to compete with teams like that in the market if we want to attract good players to the club. We can't really expect to compete with them if we aren't going to pay for good players. Obviously i wouldn't want the club to exceed their spending power which would do more bad than good but if we 'the fans' want the club to win the league and do it the right way we have to be patient and build up a team over a few years which are capable of winning the league, if we want to do it now the club have to compete in the market and wage wise, or, we accept we can't compete financially and lower our expectations, we can't have it both ways. I think some fans don't realise that. Basically a lot of fans want us to compete outwith our means now. I don't think our squad is good enough to win the league, that's not being negative that is just being honest. No point bull sh*tting and saying our squad is brilliant because who can honestly say we have the best squad in the league, anyone who does is kidding them self and they know it. I think the club did wrong by getting the fans hopes up with this 'go straight back up campaign' and i think the club were being dishonest here, all they were doing was trying to sell more season tickets rather than being straight with the fans. I think next summer we start over, get rid of the expectations and arrogance and start building a team that wants to play for the shirt. Or we go out and spend a fortune on players and put ourselves in the crapper, either way if we're commited to one way at least we're being honest. I personally would go for the first method and build up a team rather than later.

Jeez, i thought i was the only one to complain about the pitch. My lawn has a shorter cut than that one. Essons feet sunk in that grass and i forgot how small a pitch it really is? The state of it was IMO the reason why Imrie and Hayes couldnt put their pace down. Oh come on all 22 players have to deal with the same conditions. Imrie just ain't that good. we were beat by better players that's all. next season we just need to make sure we bring in a management team that knows what they are doing and players that are good enough. if teams like, County, QOS, Raith and Partick can find good players why can't we. the players we have at the moment are not good enough, 2nd division at best bar a few of them.

Do you not mean div 2?

surely that isn't true, football managers get paid off all the time and then replaced.

exactly my point Top6- the pressure was probably on ICT at the start of the season, being the ex SPL club, but Dundee, County & possibly QOS have all the pressure on them, which should be in our favour...as they will tire. County & QOS are defo punching above their weight as someone else remarked. I think that we are in an ok position, we aren't too far of the pace but I'd much prefer to have more points, anyone who is saying it's better to have less points than more at the moment are talking silly, i mean really, who would rather have less points because the pressure is less, if we want to win the league then we need to be able to handle pressure. Another thing I want to point out is, lets not come accross as being arrogant, teams like ross county and QOS have malled us already this season so lets not right them off, from what i've seen their squads are better than ours especially county's unfortunately. We can start to slag of other teams once we have proved ourselves, so far we haven't, and teams like county and QOS are proving to be better than us thus so far. So please lets support our team but lets not be arrogant idiots about it, a little bit of class wouldn't go a miss.

We have played everyone in the league once, the only thing that is certain is that we are a average team in this league, so lets just take each game as it comes. Can't believe some people are still taking some games for granted, will we never learn. Lets just concentrate on getting a result in our next game nevermind the next 4.

I would have Roy back in the team, I would play him at left back or in the middle of the park. I don't see why not give him a run of games as Cox, Eagle and Hayes get worse as the season goes on, especially Cox who I thought had something to give but has just completely went down hill with each game played. Butcher get over yourself and play a player that is better than any of your rubbish signings.

I heard that as well, if true, that is amazing, well done Don, always thought he would make the grade at a higher level.

So now we are managed by a fecking legend - So what? - Who cares? - Who gives a feck? I'd much rather have had an unknown numpty in charge who might have had what it takes to get us back into to the SPL. I know we can't afford to get rid of him now thanks to his lucrative contract... I just wish I could see a wee bit of hope on the horizon. Johnboy it would seem some people would prefer to see a legend in charge doing a poor job rather than an unknown in charge doing a good job. It just doesn't makes no sense to me, hopefully once Butcher's contract is over he'll be off and we'll find a manager who knows what he's doing. butcher has a lot of arse lickers just because of who he is, not because of his skills(haha lack of sorry) as a manager.

agree with pretty much all of that, the only part i don't agree with is the bit about foran being the most talented player in the league, i wouldn't even say he comes close, there are far more talented players going about than foran in the 1st division.

From what I've seen, bar Cox and Hayes, most of Butcher's signings have been pretty poor. You truly are ignorant. BridgeAndCastle rather than just slagging people off, why don't you explain why you disagree with them.

Which makes you wonder how good his judgement is. Are we getting the Motherwell Butcher or the Brentford one? It's not just the team who have to knuckle down and start showing us what they are worth. For me, in this case, Butcher's judgement was spot on!! Why do you think that, the lad is better than anything we have by far.

That's what's worrying, I think butcher will just play these players because he has signed them, they clearly aren't better than what we have in duncan and mcbain etc but i don't think butcher will change it.

Totally agree with all of that. get duncan and mcbain back in there. i like cox, think he could be a good player with guidence, stratford is far to lightweight, not good enough in my opinion, see better players in the lower leagues than him.

Dale don't do it, don't go the team that is going to replace fort william as the worse team in britain....your far to good. get yourself at least a top half highland league team if you drop to that level, but i reckon scottish division footy for you mate i think, don't waste your talent you'll only regret it.

"Butchers Choice" :021: ;) Are we suggesting he's the dawgs? Reading the thread and a few interesting points put across. I think its probably simply a case of Hastings was on a high wage and wasn't 1st choice. So was released/given to Hamilton and Butcher probably on deadline day asked Grassa if he knew of any decent cheap experienced available left backs and Golly's name popped up. I welcome him back. Was good before and will add much needed passion and commitment to the squad. Been there done that like most of our defenders so not totally a crazy signing. Could do with shaving a couple of years off but hey whatcha gonna do! Wouldnt have minded getting Hart back though- instead of him going to Dundee. He's a good 1st div player who didnt really get prolonged chance in SPL. Sounds like golly did really well, that's brilliant, glad to hear he still has it in him. Aye good shout, Hart would have been a brilliant signing, i really rate Harty. would he have come back though if we had gone for him?