CaleyD

Come on Hamilton!!!!!! 0-1 up approaching HT

And was "allegedly" part of the reason we got rid in the first place.

Emotionally....one of the biggest crashes I've ever suffered as an ICT fan.

I don't think there's any conspiracy and I also don't want to see technology being used during games as it will just get drawn out and sanitised to the point of becoming tedious. I don't understand why advances in TV technology/quality should make it any tougher for a ref to make a right decision, if anything you'd think it would drive them to improve in order to prevent them being highlighted on the box. Those there watching the game don't all have pocket TV's to aid them in spotting the glaringly obvious errors which are being made and even if you could argue that it's not getting any worse (although I suspect statistics on fouls/cards during games might prove otherwise), it's certainly not getting any better and you have to wonder why. Aside from what I said above about the incentive to improve, the footage could (and should) be used to aid development. In saying that, I don't think you can place the blame entirely on the shoulders of the refs. Players these days seem far more willing to cheat or make the most of any given situation...the game, IMO, is not nearly as honest as it once was and I accept that this makes things tougher for the refs. But, again, the refs have the opportunity to review all the footage and to learn who is responsible and how they are executing the cheating and should be keeping up with the trend more and taking action on the pitch to stamp it out. How many times do we see a player dive and the ref does little more than usher them to get back on their feet? Start booking them, as per the rules, and they might just learn a lesson so we can all start enjoying more honest matches.

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The sunburn wasn't funny!!!

You'd have to be extremely naive to think that you can have a squad of 20+ testosterone fuelled blokes all vying for a starting place in a team of 11 without there being any kind of issues....even if they were all the best of friends. I also think it's dangerous to try and read more into it than a couple of guys perhaps getting a little frustrated at not being selected or being played out of position or whatever. It's Butchers job to encourage anyone in that boat to channel the energy in a more constructive manner and make it work for the benefit of both the player and the team....and whilst it may have been allowed to get beyond being "healthy" it seems he's now identified the problem, confronted it and can now better manage it in future.

I wouldn't be erecting a statue to any particular individual. However, it's always bothered me that, as a club, we seem to shy away from everything pre-1994 so a pair of statues depicting the Eagle and the Thistle in recognition of the clubs roots and the work done by everyone to get us where we are would be most appropriate, IMO.

That's what happens when the players get their heads in the right place and play with a bit of self belief. Due to injuries the team pretty much picked itself, and due to the team we were forced to play, the tactics pretty much picked themselves. Admittedly, I feared the worst. We were missing players in key positions and as a result the only game plan realistically available was the much criticised (at home) bide our time and hit on the counter. Was perhaps a bit of the old "stars aligned just right for us" in the fact that Motherwell probably got a sniff of blood from our abysmal home record and especially off the back of the game on Tuesday and set up to come out and attack us today....something that allowed the counter-play to be more effective on home soil than it might otherwise have been. However, take nothing away from the team. The effort continued (don't think we ever lost that) but the belief was back. When a pass was played it was expected to get there and players were moving forward from that. Stark contrast to Tuesday night when a pass was played and players hesitated to see if it was successful before moving forward. Our attacking play was also a lot more positive, every time we got in and around the area we looked like we were going to do something, players had support and chances were being taken (even if not always successfully). Today we saw a team who'd set aside their frustrations at players being played out of position, at being asked to do a job that perhaps doesn't come natural to them, at not being able to buy a home win. They recaptured the belief that has allowed us to be greater than the sum of our parts. Not going to get ahead of myself, and one game doesn't prove we've turned the corner...but if we have, then it couldn't have come at a better time ahead of next weeks cup match.

The quality of match officials has been on the decline for years....despite them being paid more now than they ever have!!! It's easy to throw technology out there as the answer, but so many errors are being made over the course of a game these days that matches would end up running for hours on end with all the stops to check videos or whatever. Sadly, as with many aspects of the game, the problem has been allowed to get so bad that it's going to be tough to fix....and to fix it, the SFA would need to admit there's an issue in the first place. I think a grade 1 ref gets about ?800 for an SPL match these days....an amount that is seldom reflected in their performance on the park. Many of our players are on less than that, and the "oh but they come under a lot of scrutiny because of TV these days" is not an acceptable excuse for them having a bad game. They certainly wouldn't be around for long if the were consistently under performing, so why should it be any different for the referees? Maybe if they worked more than a handful of hours a week for their money and spent more time on personal development and reviewing match videos to identify instances of cheating by players (which then get punished) then things would start to improve.

Sounds like the words of a man who's tried to purchase ointment there before!!!!

I think your lack of home games is preventing you from seeing/understanding exactly what is going on at TCS. We're suffering because players are not out there playing to their full potential and all the tactics in the world counts for nothing if you have a team unable to string more than two passes together and who spend the game hoofing the ball up the park and putting themselves under constant pressure as a result. It's clear from the instructions coming from the bench and the frustration of Terry and Mo that this is far from the game plan the players have been asked to execute and I fail to see why he should be shouldering the blame for that. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the players are not putting in the effort as they clearly are, but for some reason they just can't pull it together at home and it's not because we are being tactically outwitted. IMO Terry calls it as it is and I don't think he's been afraid to admit when he's made mistakes. I don't think you'll get much argument from anyone on this point and the club do try and arrange as many closed door friendlies as they can, when they can, in order to give fringe players and those returning from injury a chance for a bit of competitive match time. However, given how thin our squad has been lately and the fact we're struggling to put a full squad out on match days then it's probably just as well we're not committed to reserve fixtures where we would risk compounding the issue.

Next season WILL NOT be a 10 team SPL. What's more, as our guys get bonus based on where we finish in the league, I very much doubt they're playing for 11th in some kind of twisted idea that it would save their jobs.....in fact, that has to be the most ridiculous reason given yet for our dip in form.

I can remember the last twice things were this bad at home....one was our relegation season, the other was in 2005/06 when we only recorded 5 home wins in the season......that was the year we were 7th at the split and our points at the end of season would have had placed us 4th. Bad home form perhaps isn't necessarily the bad omen some people think it is when you take that into consideration!!!

Get the feeling he's only storing up a few deflection points for when he gets accused of pandering to the OF on the bigger issues. He can now play the "I stood up to them on the season start date", which he hasn't really because the whole being able to postpone a fixture thing just makes a mockery of it.

Similar threads have been merged.

I wouldn't say he is a man lacking ideas. If our home form was purely down to poor tactics, then I would agree, but it's not. Terry is not taking them on to the training pitch and showing them how to miss a pass or fail to get a foot on the ball. They don't all stand in a line and practice hoofing balls from one end of the pitch to the other. He can't go out there and kick the ball for them, and his team selections and set up are largely similar to what gets suggested on the "Team For" threads. IMO, our problems at home are all in the head, and Terry is also doing all he can to deal with that situation. Others are calling for change (although with the injuries etc we've had/got I'm not sure where they would be made) and you are saying that change would be a sign that he's lost it.....i.e. he can't win on that front. I don't know what the answer/solution is, but I do think we've got a Manager with enough experience to get to the bottom of it and get the team out the other side.

The league table doesn't lie and it says we are sitting 7th. You'd have been laughed at before the season started (and some were) for suggesting we'd be in with a fighting chance of a top 6 this year, yet that's where we've been parked out until last night. Whilst home fans may be feeling a little short changed by the fact we've achieved that with our performances on the road, I don't think the situation merits the suggestion that Butcher and Malpas have done all they are capable of doing at ICT.

HT Summary......rubbish game all round. Game started slow with no urgency from either team, and apart from about 3 minutes in the middle it never got much better. Munro seemed to take about 20 to 25 minutes to get comfortable and was hoofing anything and everything that came to him. He did settle down a bit, but then started getting caught up the field when playing out and forward. Hayes with a couple of glimpses of his old self, but still far from anything like the player we're used too...but you could perhaps forgive him for that having just come back from injury. Up front. Rooney is very much the lone striker as Foran spending most of his time in the midfield area at least trying to get something going as Cox and Duff are unwilling/unable to put a foot on the ball. Looking at the subs bench I don't see much that could change things....especially when the problems are so widespread. Ref isn't helping the game any either, some of his decisions are laughable and Utd should have at least 2 guys in the book.....the only thing he did in our favour was not book Tokely for the second time when he brought the boy down on the edge of the are, or award the penalty which it might easily have been. Thankfully Innes and Hogg looking not too shabby and they've saved us on a few occasions and stopped Utd getting any clear chances at goal.

I think it's easy to look back on our pre-SPL days with more than a hint of the old rose tinted glasses. Partly because it was pretty much a period of "the rise and rise" of ICT and our almost consistent progress makes it easy to forget the poor spells and bad games. Things are a lot different now, we're no longer playing for promotion or titles and it's very much a case of playing to avoid relegation.....along with half the other teams in the league. It's easy to be of the opinion that once safety is secured then we should just switch to a more "entertaining" style of play with a "nothing to lose" attitude, but with the split also coming in to contention and pressure on from the fans to make the top 6 then going all out "entertaining" doesn't really become an option until after the split....and even then only if your top half or safe. I think it's a sad reflection on the state of the game that this is the case, and the only thing that will change it is a larger top league.....but as we all know, that's not going to happen any time soon.

We've never been any good at throw-ins, it was a problem that existed years before Butcher arrived.

Think you make a valid point/case.....but, the fans can't (directly) improve the product and it's the SPL who are strangling the atmosphere with things like all-seater stadia and no standing rules. What's more. the product isn't going to get any better by reducing competitiveness and introducing measures which will make it tougher for clubs to nurture young talent and generate a more entertaining product. Smaller league size will only lead to even more turgid football as desperation to avoid relegation intensifies. It's things like the above which seem to have been totally overlooked/ignored in this whole Scottish Football Reform thing. You can make all the changes in the world to ensure clubs are more financially stable, but if you kill the product in the progress then you lose customers and it becomes pointless endeavour. No reason why football can't be made more enjoyable, thus giving the fans something to cheer about, and also introduce measures which deliver financial "breaks" for clubs.

I've come to the conclusion that Doncaster either can't answer all the questions that are being asked, or he's scared that the plans would be made to look ridiculous if he were to submit himself to any kind of open discussion/debate with fans on the matter. Every time "Fan Concerns" are brought up the only point he ever talks about is "We can't have a 16 or 18 team league" he doesn't seem willing to acknowledge that fans are more intelligent than that and that our concerns/desires for the game go beyond the debate on just the league size. A Question Time style debate where every club (across all leagues) gets to nominate one fan to make up the audience numbers and Doncaster can put together his own panel would make for very interesting Radio/TV and might actually force them in to listening, addressing and answering the many questions that are going around.

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International rugby returns to the Highlands on Friday night as Scotland under-20 take on their Irish counterparts at Tulloch Caledonian Stadium (kick-off 7.30pm, admission FREE) in a crunch 6 Nations Championship fixture. Full Article - Official Website