CaleyD

I found myself having a wee laugh at my own expense earlier today. Was going through the papers and online reading about all these people who have us tipped for the drop and was getting more than a little worked up about it. It was about that moment where I was about to start throwing the papers around that my sister pointed out to me that I had been complaining that if we didn't get our act in order then we would be relegation favourites.....and I had to point out to her that it was ok for me to say it as an ICT fan, but that all these so called "experts" hadn't got a clue what they were on about. So their you have it....double standards on my part, and as much as I might agree with any ICT fan who thinks we could struggle, god help any non-ICT fans who dares to suggest it.

If people want to invest in the club then I believe there's still available share. Last time I heard anything about it the minimum purchase was ?250 (?) so anyone with a spare ?500 to throw at the club could do so that way and get something in return. Granted, you wouldn't have any (direct) say in how the investment was used, but being a shareholder does give you a voice and entitlement to attend AGM's etc.

The more I hear about the evening the more I'm liking it. As I said already, I'm not really fussed who Liverpool send up for the match, seeing names like Mann, Bingham and Ritchie are far more appealing to me than Keane, Gerrard and Torres. Looking forward to this game more than anything the rest of the season might have to throw up. Big to everyone who's had a hand in organising it.

Whilst I can see what Aberdeen are trying to do, I can't help but feel that they are creating a whole load of extra work for themselves. On top of that they are penalising their own fans by charging them the extra ?1. Whilst they have said that they will get a ?1 discount off the next home game, it's just extra hassle that I'm sure fans and the club could have done without. Surely the administration involved in selling the tickets themselves would not be that much more than having to administer a discount voucher plan. How will it work? Will people have to go to the ticket office to redeem the voucher, will they be able to use it online or for telephone orders?...has the potential to get very messy IMO. I see they are also going to charge the OF the 5% Levy for when they sell their tickets, which is fair enough, but the whole thing is turning into one huge administrative nightmare and I'm just waiting for the OF to come out with a "you can't charge us and not other teams, so we're not paying"....as hypocritical as that would seem, I wouldn't put it past the OF. Just doesn't make sense to over complicate the issue, especially as I can see it costing them more than simply telling the OF to shove it and selling the tickets themselves.

We used to get far more out of our SportNetwork site than most because we did a lot of custom coding for things. If ICT employed the services of a suitably experienced IT person then they would certainly be able to get similar results.

If Aberdeen want respect then they can start earning it come 3pm on Saturday....we have to go into this game with a "no prisoners" attitude.

Think your reading too much into it Action Man. Even those who may have (justified) concerns about his effectiveness in being Captain and how it might impact on his performances are, on the whole, supportive of him. So long as that is the case it doesn't matter if he was picked because he was all we had or if he was a stand out for the job.

Despite my pessimism at how our squad is shaping up for the season I find myself feeling more and more optimistic about our chances this weekend as the game gets closer and I sit down to look at what we have. Not saying we should forget that we have obvious "needs" within the squad, but looking at it from the point of view of making the best of what we do have then I would like to see us go with a setup as follows. ---------------Fraser--------------- Proctor - Tokely - Munro - Djebi-Zadi Wilson -------- Black -------- McBain ---------Cowie ------- Imrie--------- -------------Barrowman------------- Not only do I think that's possibly our strongest setup, but it's the one which will allow us to make most changes on the park, either without the need for subs, or when the need for subs arises. If you look at Proctor, Tokely, Munro, Zadi and McBain and Imrie...we can basically slide that 5 round, either as part of the tactics, or if it doesn't look like working. Basically push Proctor into the midfield, Tokely across to the right, Munro and Zadi in the middle, McBain at Left Back and Imrie on the left....giving us.......... ---------------Fraser--------------- Tokely - Munro - Djebi-Zadi - McBain Wilson --- Proctor --- Black --- Imrie -------------- Cowie --------------- -------------Barrowman------------- Or even.......... ---------------Fraser--------------- Tokely ------ Munro ------ Djebi-Zadi --------- Proctor --- Black --------- Wilson ----------------------- McBain ------- Cowie --------Imrie -------- -------------Barrowman------------- Wilson is in there to go all out for as long as he can to work the Aberdeen defense, being replaced by Zander Sutherland who's nippy and will run rings round a tired defense. Our strength is in our midfield, so we need to make best use of that. Although our defense, arguably, has a hole in it then we need to use defending midfielders to strengthen it and I think the best way to do that is perhaps to remove the deadwood (McGuire) and replace him with Proctor and Black as a second line, as it were. No point playing a back 4 just for the sake of it. Same goes up front. Our forwards are, as yet, unproven. It therefore doesn't make sense to play 2 of them just for the sake of it and we should look to the strength we have in attacking midfielders to support a single front man. I've put in Barrowman, but it could just as easily be McAllister, Rooney (if he's here) or whoever is perfroming best in training this week. Likewise, I have Djebi-Zadi in there, but it could just as easily be Hastings. Forget about what Aberdeen may line up with...we have to play to our strengths and I'll be looking for Brewster to be thinking a little beyond the 4-4-2 this season to prove he has what it takes to get the best from the squad that's available. If ever their was a game to get us fired up for the season, this is it. If the lads are hungry enough for the win to put the Aberdeen jinx behind us then I honestly believe that we have enough there to get us going on a high this season. If we line up with a traditional 4-4-2 and resort to lumping it up the park we're screwed IMO, but think a little outside the norm and play the ball through, what I believe is, a strong midfield then we could really upset Aberdeen big time.

I don't know which was the funnier....the result of the game or Mad Vlad talking to the reporter and going on about the Mafia controlling Scottish Football. All in all, a very entertaining evening

There's an article in The Herald - Clicky Clicky Sounds as if we're playing the "If you want a new contract then earn it" card....which is, IMO, a dangerous course of action with players in the final year of a contract, especially ones we should be holding on to. If they go out and have a great start to the season then they're going to be tempted on to bigger and better things and we'll end up losing for nothing or selling on the cheap come January. I would have thought we'd learned lessons there, especially after selling Rankin for a fraction of his worth.

I think Duncan blew any chance he had of getting a shot at the Captains Arm Band with his antics last season. It was as if he'd been to the "Ian Black School of Back Chatting a Ref".

What's so confusing? Club say they have, player says they haven't.....this kind of thing is the norm for ICT, nothing at all confusing in it.

Alex...if he's not willing to negotiate an extension at this time then he may well find that the club transfer list him to try and avoid losing him for nothing in 12 months or very little in 6 months.

It's asking for E.Maill addies for me to be able to Invite people. Feel free to PM them to me instead of putting them up in public.

The Refs have the SPL by the balls, and they know it. It's not just coincidence that they waited till the week before the season was due to kick off before making their demands...they knew the SPL could not deny them some sort of settlement. I also don't buy the argument about the SFA not doing enough to protect them. They are out there on the pitch making decisions on games, and sometimes they get them so wrong it's unbelievable. If they can call a player a cheat and wrongly issue him a red card then they have to learn to suck it up when someone chooses to criticise their performance. Referees getting a hard time isn't anything new and they were aware of that when they decided to get involved in the profession.

Full Story Here I wouldn't grudge them the money if they were up to scratch, but ?1000 per game for the performances they provide is a taking the Michael.

We do indeed have one on the site CLICK HERE But since some people already seem interested in the Clydesdal Bank one I see no harm in having a Mini League for those who want to do both.

A player that wants to play against Rangers and Celtic....that's what I like to hear.

I've created a Mini League for those from the site that wish to go head to head with each other on it. Just waiting for it to be approved so I can open it up to others to join and will post the details soon as I have them.

Our 3 lines are at very different stages of "development" and that's what has me a little concerned. Across the middle we have plenty of options and most of the players know each other and have had more than a few pre-season kick arounds together. They're established and there's little reason to expect that they have gone off the biol going in to the coming season. At the back....we've had a glaring hole in our defence since Dods left. McGuire started off ok(ish) when he arrived but then went to the dogs, the lack of competition for places meant we had little option but to stick with him...and perhaps he knew that and wasn't trying as hard as he might have. With the signing of Djebi-Zadi it creates a bit of competition for a starting place and hopefully he can prove to be the better option or force McGuire to get the finger out and up his game. At the front....a totally new set of forwards, and although Rory has been with us for a few years now he's not really had a regular run of games and is not that much further forward in terms of being established in any way than any of the rest. The big problem here is that these guys have had very little time to get to know each other, they're all making a step up, and none of them are proven scorers at this level. We've had new players come in every year, it's nothing new, but the big difference this year is that we have players coming in to fill places where they have little or no experience to back them up and show them the way. They could well click and start banging in the goals, and I hope they do, but if things go wrong, we don't have any experience to turn to in order to lead the way. Brewster may think he can perfrom that role from the sidelines, but he struggles enough on occassion to take in the full picture in a game and if he's focusing on the front line then he's not going to be able to readily spot problems elsewhere. It's not really the players I don't have confidence in, it's the setup and Brewsters ability to get the best from what we've got. I actually think I'd be a lot more comfortable going in to this season if we had Pele at the reins....if ever their was a manager to get the best out of a young, inexperienced set of lads then it was him.

Not sure about that, there's a good few from down South who reckon we're far too related for our own good up here.

I think the official site is hindered a great deal by other factors further up the chain which prevent those who are involved in it's day to day operation from being more pro-active. I get the impression (certainly in more recent years) that the club see the website as a necessary evil as opposed to a really useful tool for communicating with the fans and getting information out which isn't cloaked in media spin. Alex, as I understand it the club are 100% in control of what news they put on and how long it takes them to get it on there. PremiumTV is basically a portal and a set of tools that allow the club to do that. However, the person responsible for updating the site can only do so when they have been given the story to go on, and it's the attitudes above which I believe lead to the delays. As I understand it Fiona is responsible for doing most of the stuff and you can see what a great job she does when, as you point out, the Match Reports are added to the site very quickly after the game....I think I may have even seen instances where she's given a first half report before the games has ended, so she is, IMO, doing the best she can. We're lucky in that we have a very active forum and although we might not get news up on the front page there's every chance that someone will have picked up on something and opened up discussion on it within minutes of the news being available.....so in effect we have 1400 or so members watching for stories and bringing them to the attention of the rest....even if the club had someone working full time on such a thing with the authority to comment and put up articles on the Official Site then they'd never manage to compete with that as they can only be in one place at one time doing one thing. Also, whilst we might talk about things good or bad, you wouldn't really expect the Official site to publish a story which isn't favourable to them...and they can't be expected to write about or release "Rumours or Speculation". As a slight aside, we also have to look at the platform ICT, and other clubs, choose to use for their websites. Most of the SPL Official sites at the moment use PremiumTV which is basically the same idea as the setup we used when we were on SportNetwork. It's a basically a template that sites can change the colours etc on and add their logo to in order to make it look like it belongs to them, but for the most part they are all the same. PremiumTV design the template, provide the systems and operate the technical side of things and clubs pay them (a fair bit) for that service. CaleyThistleOnline.com was the Official Site on that setup until we moved off it about 2.5 years ago. We moved off of it because not only was it not meeting our needs as a site for fans, but it wasn't meeting the needs of the club in it's "Official" capacity. It therefore came as a very strange decision that when the club decided to go it alone that they chose to jump back into the same setup that they had just got themselves out of not so long before and that the negatives being highlighted by fans are the same as the ones we were witnessing way back then. A good, up to date website = more visitors and more vistors = more income. However, until such time as clubs (not just ICT) learn to embrace the internet and make effective use of it then they'll continue to fall short in realising it's full potential.

As some of you might already be aware we are trying to put together an Editorial Team to take the lead in the running of the Front End part of the website. Aside from the usual Match Previews and Reports we're looking for people to write stories on other news to do with ICT, be it news coming from the club or giving a write up of an ICT Social Event. We even get asked on occasion if we can provide a fans view for a newspaper or give the names of someone that might be interested on doing a wee interview for the TV or Radio. If your interested in joining the team or want more information then drop me a message and I can let you know where we're at and what's involved. Even with the best will in the world, Scotty and I can only guess at the types of things most people want to see and there's only so many hours in the day for us to do that....with the input, ideas and suggestions of the Editorial Team we hope to expand on that and make the site more in keeping with what you guys and gals really want.

This coming season is probably one of the hardest since we got to the SPL to come up with a relegation favourite. Hamilton - The new boys and and unknown quantity, they seem to have youth and determination on their side and I don't think they've made too many changes so will have squad consistency to back that up. St Mirren - The team I love to hate for some reason....I think my desire to see them struggle has more to do with the eejits that post on Pie and Bovril than anything else and they need bringing down a peg or two...lol. In terms of team, they've made a couple of decent signings. Killie - Seemed to have lost whatever secret they had to (relative) success. They struggled last season and not seen anything to suggest they can claw themselves back up to the mid table position they held for so long. Hibs - My "Wildcard"...Seem to be struggling to put together a team that works and have had a disaster of a pre-season. Could the wheels be falling off? Probably not relegation candidates, but likely an increased chance for teams to be taking points off them. ICT - Who knows? Still a gawping hole in our back line and up front we look like we're going to be relying on youngsters yet to prove themselves. Our saving grace could, again, be the fact that we have a midfield full of players who seem to be able to find the net.

Well there you go then, we can stand up in whatever court we land up being taken too and tell the judge we're not paying Marius Niculae because he cost us a couple of league positions. Let's just hope that we can also convince the courts that Marius was the one picking the team so as we can deflect blame from the management for making the decision to put him on the pitch. That should make it really water tight. Alex, I think your falling into a similar mindset as the club seem to be insomuch as they have now apparently set along a path of "any excuse" not to pay the money, no matter how ridiculous it seems.