stevico1

Would need to be mad to change the formation after Ayr last week, particulary as we are playing at home, get at them early and they wont know what's hit them

Just curious but why Alex, I thought he did well with Aberdeen

Dowling has explained in Highland News what happened with the Savage and Sutherland bids, Sutherland could not have stepped in as SFA rules prevent from having controlling interest in any other club and Savage wanted a larger shareholding than could be worked out at the time.

Sssshhhh! they have forgotten we are not an SPL team anymore

When that happened there was still an Inverness club left in the Highland League and that to me at any rate was desperately important. Now it appears that there is a significant chance that there will be no Highland League football in the place that the Highland League was founded and that would be tragic. My own feeling is that the best chance initially lies with the efforts being made by a stalwart group of "Clachers" to finance the TEAM as opposed to the club through the next few weeks and keep them on the park. These begin with a meeting tomorrow night. This is happening with the blessing of the Administrator. If this is successful it may just create enough breathing space for someone perhaps to come in and form "Clachnacuddin 2009" to inherit the playing arm from "Clachnacuddin 1990" which could then depart in peace. However there are at least three problems there. * The pitch and changing rooms would need to continue to be made avaliable. * The Highland League and the SFA would have to agree to the change and I understand that this may not be straightforward. * And most importantly Clach 2009 would have to achieve the underlying viability which eluded its predeceeors Clach 1990 and the original Limited Company set up in the 70s. (And indeed from what Gordy said above, a lot of its predecessors across several previous decades.) This would be a good solution so lets hope that we can continue the Highland League tradition in Inverness.

Terry saying in Highland News that he will probably stick with the same system that he used against Ayr :)

No chance now Scarlett it has gone to far, I just discussed with Marius his interview in this weeks Highland News or more specifically the interview with George Fraser and Marius is very annoyed at continually been called a lair. Mr Fraser claims he tried to contact with Marius, Mr Fraser as I said before if you have lost Marius telephone number why did you not contact me for his number, this is how the Daily Record got his number this is how the Highland News got his number. They had a chance at the beginning to sort this but its gone far to far now and in my opinion they have nobody to blame but themselves for complete and utter mismanagement. I have no idea their agenda for letting it get this far, and it looks like they are not finished but as a previous poster said with interest payment, legal fees etc they are shipping Euros by the minute.

Thanks for clearing that up Charles, I remember at the time of the proposed Savage or Sutherland takeover there were a number of rumours circulating as to why it fell through, in fact I think I read in a local paper that the SFA reason was why (probably from a prominent Merkinch councillor) it didn't happen. While I think that Dowling was on a thankless task at Clach , I am not so sure that it is old fashioned Old Labour Socialism is a fair assessment of strathyjags posts. When these guys put themselves up a Chairman do they not think that in times of hardship the fans will expect them to bail the club out, why are Chairmen always reasonably affluent businessmen if they are not going to invest in the club?

Wonder whether Inverness City will take up that mantle they seem to be a team on the up?

Very sad, would be very interesting to see what happened to the proposed bids from Savage and Sutherland when they were meant to happen. Was it another power battle between them? Was it Dowling refusing to sell unless he was kept as Chairman so he could keep his SFA position? Whatever very strange that both were interested then both dropped out, think the writing was on the wall for the club at this stage.

Think I am hearing same snippets as you and indeed it is going to be a Savage battle.

I can assure you its to late, Marius is not bothered if they take it to appeal as is confident of same outcome.

It is indeed quite surprising that the parties didn't reach a compromise on this. One or both sides must have been certain that they were in the right, and would fare better by letting it go all the way. Can assure you it was never discussed, as I am confident a compromise could have been met, anyway to late now

At the end of the day we can all think what we want bottom line is that FIFA through a five man panel decided that Niculae did not instigate the transfer, it looks like the club will take it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport which is their right and we will just have to see what the outcome is from this. I do believe that the club thought Marius would eventually drop this as his legal fees up to now are a small fortune, however that was a mistake as Marius has told me that he will fight this every step of the way because he believes he was right. What frustrates me is if the club had taken the time to fly out to meet Marius before this all got so messy I know it could have been resolved in a lot less costly and and messy way.

Maybe the club have something 'up their sleeve' which the marius faction dont know about, ie from the German team. We also have to understand that Stevico is a wee bit biased here and so his comments will always support his mate. Well why didn't they produce that for FIFA they had a year to do it. And while you might consider me to be biased I can assure you Fifa were not What I still dont quite get, is that Mr Niculae was apparently allowed to go home on personal reasons (not sure but had he perhaps been recently married?) and that surely does not qualify as negotiating terms on a contract with another club. It seemed that he had agreed contract terms etc and then a bid was made (in euros) and that the club reluctuntly accepted (even if it was a ? sterling bid it was still lower than other offer on table) due to it being lower than the bid Kaiserslauten had approached with. This was because this was Marius's preference. The bid was lower so why would it be accepted unless the players asks as such. This to me is instigating a transfer of the players preference. We seemingly lost out on money because of the players wishes to join a certain club a deal hadn't been finalised with. Some could say he negotiated terms whilst in contract also (tapping up?) Stevico, maybe you can clear this up for me, what with your insider knowledge, as it is still one big muddle in my eyes. But I wish it would just all go away. There was no higher offer on the table that Marius was informed off ( I don't think there was a higher offer) been through it all before and the evidence from both parties has been given to FIFA. ICT accepted a bid for Marius from Dinamo, Dinamo paid the agreed fee by bank transfer (the same day I think if not the next) Marius then agreed terms with Dinamo. I am sure that if it had been a case of tapping up FIFA would not have ruled in his favour. Bottom line is if ICT were not happy with the transfer why did they send an invoice to Dinamo the same day, and if they thought Marius instigated the transfer why did they not get him to put a transfer request in before they accepted it considering how much money was at stake.

Maybe the club have something 'up their sleeve' which the marius faction dont know about, ie from the German team. We also have to understand that Stevico is a wee bit biased here and so his comments will always support his mate. Well why didn't they produce that for FIFA they had a year to do it. And while you might consider me to be biased I can assure you Fifa were not

Come on Yngwie how blinkered can you be, read Marius's comments again he made it very clear he did not instigate the transfer, I can tell you for a fact Marius never instigated the transfer. This all came about as the club mucked up on Pounds/Euros at the time of the transfer, up until then they even said in the papers Marius was due his share, once they realised it was Euros they agreed on they tried to backtrack. Why do you beleive their version of events so much, its been with FIFA for months and they have judged in Marius favour does that not give you a hint.

Of course they don't Johnboy why do you think FIFA ruled in Marius favour. So an appeal would be a complete waste of time (and money) In my opinion totally but they obviously think differently, I am totally baffled by it and so are some members of the Romania FA that I am friendly with, can't quite believe they would do this without a written transfer request, club must be better off than I thought if they can afford to take this forward again. Legal Fees, Marius will be due interest etc .

Good post Don Yes I am fully aware who is responsible for our current position but that will not be changing in the near future, they got away with the Brewster fiasco they will get away with the Niculae fiasco and no doubt the next fiasco they create. Going back to Butcher, agree that whether I like it or not we have got Butcher him and the only thing to do is get fully behind him and the players and I will be doing that

Of course they don't Johnboy why do you think FIFA ruled in Marius favour.

Yes but Don we were playing SPL opposition then, we are decidedly average against 1st Division opponents now, I am not sure that is any better Had we managed to maintain our SPL Squad then I might be more inclined to agree with where you're coming from. (Some) Players have had to adapt...and are still doing so. The Club has had to adapt...and is still doing so. Unfortunately we have large parts of our support who have not adapted and who are of the opinion that they should not have too and they can still expect "SPL Quality" performances from a Div 1 setup. It's the old "managing expectations" argument that's cropped up on here a number of times in the last few years. Post-relegation and preseason all we heard was "Bounce Straight Back", "Bounce Straight Back", "Bounce Straight Back"....so part of me totally understands that this is what fans expect and that current results are just not good enough to achieve that. However, I also expect most fans to be able to think for themselves and realise that all the promises made mean nothing when they aren't being backed up by actions. That's not a reference to action on the pitch, it's reference to the fact that we lost a good few players we could ill afford to lose if we were to have a realistic go at bouncing straight back and NO money was made available for transfer fees to bring in comparable replacements. With that in mind....what do people actually expect to be seeing? If the players on the pitch are not good enough....that's not their fault, they've been asked to go out there and do a job and so long as they're trying then we can ask no more. If the manager doesn't have the players/resources to allow him to fulfil the promises....that's not his fault. He can only use what's available, and given he never had a penny to spend in transfer fees, I don't know what kind of players people were expecting to see. Perhaps if we took just a moment to appreciate what we do have on the park, instead of beating them up because they're not what we expected, then we might just all enjoy our football a touch better and perhaps if we put a little less pressure on the players then they'll open up and show us that, like past ICT teams, the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. I could be totally wrong and it might not make the slightest bit of difference, but right now it's the only real option available to the fans, so it has to be worth a go, surely? Don I think we will just have to agree to disagree on this one. Butcher has done nothing to suggest to me he can turn it round on the playing side ,in fact he has never done it at any club he has been at. You said that if the players are not good enough its not their fault, who's is it then, the guy that signed them. Ok he's not been given money but there are other managers in the division that pick up players of free transfers that do the job, the vast majority of his signings have been very poor. Don't know of the top of my head how many Butcher has signed since he got here but I think that he has got more wrong than right, a club of limited resources needs a better judge of players than that. And like I said before it is not expectations as I never expected to bounce back, in fact I think more than the fans having high expectations Butcher thought it would be far easier than it has been and he is now struggling badly. But like you said we have no other option at present.

Maybe they are similar crowd size but there players will not be far of earning what the Rangers ones are if not on par If that's so can you please advise the club where they have extra income streams so we can emulate them? Very rich Romanians investing in the club pure and simple

Maybe they are similar crowd size but there players will not be far of earning what the Rangers ones are if not on par

Bold management by Petrescu, when they went 1 down he took of a defender and put on a striker, away from home in Europe as well, brilliant

Bold management by Petrescu, when they went 1 down he took of a defender and put on a striker, away from home in Europe as well, brilliant