CaleyD

Got home last night and could hardly be ersed coming on here to post any thoughts because I knew that everyone would only be saying what I was thinking.....I sat through it all once and I really wasn't in the mood for reliving it all on here again. That's no criticism on the site users or what they post, just a reflection of how bad I thought it all was yesterday. I don't think we started too badly in all honesty and we were playing some half decent football, albeit it in short spells that normally ended up being spoiled by schoolboy errors. Then the first goal went in and our midfield dropped so far back that they had the defense sitting in their back pockets and our own guys were doing nothing more than falling over the top of each other. Fraser was, IMO, to blame for the first goal. He started to come for the ball and our guys stood off it in order to give him space, but then he stops and starts back pedalling leaving open space for the easy header into the back of the net past a floundering goalkeeper. We couldn't string anything together, and whenever Imrie or Patti got a break away on the wing nobody pushed forward to offer any support. We were second to everything and even when we were first we kindly passed it to the wrong team. The midfield seemed scared to cross the half way line and our back four were working hard to make sure they played every Hearts forward onside at every opportunity. As for tackling.....the only person out there yesterday that looked capable of getting a foot on a ball was Ross Tokely, the rest of the team couldn't tackle a fish supper. This was point proven at the second goal when Black and Patti(?) failed to put any pressure on allowing the simple pass down the line to the unmarked Nade who nutmegged Grant Munro and only had to step over Duncan who slid right past the front of him without making contact on anything.....there's a reason Elliot hasn't scored for 2 years, but when your central defender (McGuire) leaves his man (Elliot) standing alone in the middle of the box to chase ghosts then he's never going to miss when the ball comes to his feet. Niculae had two half chances to get the ball in the net, the first was just a little too high for him and he couldn't get far enough off the ground to head it downwards and the second once seemed to take a bounce as he struck it (whilst at full stretch) and went over the bar. It's easy to criticise missed opportunities, especially when the overall team performance is so chronic, but Niculae was one of only 2 or 3 players we had out there playing with any real spirit yesterday. How Brewster or the team thought a lone striker was going to manage to do anything when he was having to drop back to the half way line to compensate for the midfield sitting so deep is anyones guess. Credit to Brewster though, he made the change that many people wanted to see at half time and Wyness came on to assist up front, but Brewster can't go out there and play the game for the lads and they failed to make use of the front two in the second half. The third goal will be a contender for "It'll be alright on the night".....What Black thought he was doing is beyond me, and whilst Fraser did well to win the initial challenge he was slow to get back to his line and was caught ball watching.....watching as it was floated easily over his head and in to the back of the net. Other moments of note during the game..... Black imitating Duncan by twice missing tackles and sliding straight past his man. Our team sitting back with their feet up as Patti made a great run down the left to find that his only option was to run it to the corner as nobody had bothered to get forward an in to the box. Imrie making some wonderful moves on the right only to end them by passing the ball to the opposition. Duncan actually managing to make four forward passes one after the other which both went forward and to our own players...unfortunately the ball came straight back to him each time and he seemed to get a little hacked off by that so gave the ball to Hearts on attempt number 5. The clown of a referee who just made a bad day even worse. Makulinas would have had several yellow cards before the tackle in which he finally got booked, and to add insult to injury he dived later in the game and the ref just smiled at him and told him to get up. The one decision the nearside linesman got correct when he gave a corner to ICT...only for the ref to come in and overrule it and give the goal kick. The Hearts defence obviously rate Niculae highly because they spent the entire game trying to pull his short off him to add to their collection....the ref obviously thought this was understandable because he failed to penalise Hearts for it even once. The ref running half way back down the pitch to book Black for allegedly mouthing, despite the fact Black had been talking to the dugout and walked off in the opposite direction of the ref at the time...no wonder the wee man looked disgusted. Player Ratings.... Rossco - 7.5 Patti - 7 Niculae - 7 Everyone Else - 4.5 A wee message for the team......I don't give a flying feck how much disharmony might be present, people pay good money to come and watch you play and they have a right to expect you to at least make the effort. Far too many of you were out there yesterday and just didn't look interested in the slightest. If that's the way you want to play it then every single one of you can leave in the summer and we'll have 11 players who are at least willing to make the effort to entertain the guys who do support you regardless of everything else. You may feel like you owe the club jack 5hit, but you do owe the fans. My apologies to Rory for not seeing you come out and play with what is reported as a bit of spirit and a much improved performance from what we have perhaps witnessed in the past, but quite simply, I couldn't take any more and I decided that going back to work was going to be far more enjoyable than watching the shocking display being put on by the majority of your team mates.

I was right last week. No leadership on the park, you would think some of our lads had never met before let alone played together. I may be about to leave a game early in disgust for the first time ever.

Formation is more like an 8-1 and we can't tackle for chit.

I had something pointed out to me tonight that I must admit had slipped my attention. Duncan was banging on in the press about how he was coming to the end of a long contract with the club and therefore his wages weren't in sync with many of the other players at ICT. I had thought that this was correct and he was approaching the end of a 4 year deal, but I was told tonight that he had a revised contract in April 2006. Have just checked and that is the case. His contract was due to expire last year but in 2006 he signed a new 2 year deal which took him up to this summer. So that being the case, I don't think he can be so far behind the other players in terms of what he is getting in his wage packet as what we might have been led to believe.

If any of the ones heading to the game want to put together a match report for the site, it would be appreciated.

:019:

The Off-Topic posts and personal jibes have been removed and the thread has be re-opened. Lets try and keep it that way.

Having seen the video (from several angles) I'm not convinced the tackle was performed with any "intent" and it doesn't appear to have been that hard a tackle. The still shots are very misleading and the video shows that Taylor got contact on the ball and his foot slid over the top of it - hence the reason his foot was so high. As someone who has suffered horrendous injury through sport (twice) I know just how easily these things can happen. Even the most innocent of tackles can lead to serious injury and we shouldn't be so quick to brand the player a "thug" or any such thing.

Take the first 10 minutes out of that game and I would have come away and been happy that we went out there and at least put on a performance...although a little frustrated at not making more of the opportunities we created. The question I would be asking right now is why our players are only getting fired up after we go a goal (or more) down. The players have shown they are capable, so I don't think it's an ability or training issue (other than set pieces). I don't even think it is a moral issue, the fact that the players manage to click into action (eventually) is testament to the fact that the Team Spirit still exists, it's just a little buried when they take to the park. Aside from all the "conspiracy" theories I think what this team is missing more than anything else right now is a natural leader, someone with the ability, experience and respect to tell the players to put any other business that is going on aside and get their mind on the game from the off.

There's no room for sentiment in professional football, so I don't give much credit to the train of thought that suggests Wilson should be involved more just because of the service he has given the club and the fact it's his testimonial season. However, I do believe Wilson still has something to offer as a player and we should be trying to retain his services and make better use of him on that basis. The only other thing I would say is that people should not be so quick to point the finger of blame at Brewster as this has far more to do with club politics than it has to do with Director of Football Manager selections.

This topic has been moved to Rumour Mill. [iurl]http://www.caleythistleonline.com/community/index.php?topic=6201.0[/iurl]

I used to be informed of the dates of the clubs Press Conferences and was made welcome when I attended. Not saying I would no longer be made welcome.....but they did stop sending me the notifications :015:

As promised by Maimie here is the proper poster with all the details of the race night. I've also attached a copy of the poster in PDF Format should anyone wish to download and print it off. [attach=1] racenight_20080229.jpg_thumb racenight_20080229.pdf

IMO, the problem has not been caused by Niculae, or the wage he is on, the problem lies in the way the whole thing has been handled from start to finish. If you know that your going to be signing a player on a wage which is a good bit more than the rest of the squad then the last thing you do is ignore the contracts of all other players for so long whilst drooling over a single person. When Brewster left us the first time, Charlie Christie stood up and criticised him for not taking care of player contracts, we now find out that whilst the club were bending over backwards to secure funding for Niculae and getting ready to go to court to secure his Visa, the rest of the squad were yet again being ignored, so much so that we now look towards the end of this season and the very real possibility of losing a large portion of our first team squad.......the question for me is....why the **** are we employing a Director of Football (one who gets paid more than most players) who has allowed this situation to arise on more than one occasion? I can't imagine it would be acceptable at any other club, so why is it acceptable at ours? All it would have taken to prevent many of the issues we are seeing now is for the DoF and the Manager to have sat down and sorted out our existing players before they went chasing anyone else. To me, it looks like our most "loyal" players were simply taken for granted....and that is more likely to have p!ssed them off than anything else. That, for me, would explain why some/many players might be a little hacked off. As for the fans, the problem there is that the club failed to manage expectations. The club went after Niculae like he was the last striker on the planet and then they billed him as some kind of demi-god who was going to take us to the top 6 and be banging the goals in with ease. Personally, I think Niculae has added a fair bit to the team and has certainly done his share. Had he been on the same wages as everyone else then I don't think he would criticised nearly as much as he is. But the fact is, the club hyped him up to be better than what he has shown, and that created false hope and false expectations among the fans. We could put out 10 clowns and Niculae on Saturday and if we lost, it would still be Niculaes fault in the eyes of many as they bought into the hype when he signed and they believe he should be winning the games all by himself. The guy has been placed in a no-win situation and I wouldn't blame him if he was also feeling hacked off by the whole deal. However, none of that changes the fact that the club now find themselves in a situation which is going to prove almost impossible to manage without some casualties.

I believe Gretna have more youngsters on their books than any other SPL club (including the OF), so I'd imagine that they would be able to put out a team of some form....not ideal, but certainly a possibility. I also understand that all contracts/credit agreements are underwritten by Mileson so even if the worst should happen the likes of Motherwell, Stewarding companies etc would still be able to claim against his estate should they choose to continue providing services.

Our players are professional footballers and should be more than capable of playing two games in a week, so I don't buy this idea of "resting" players.

I was out tonight but checked in on the line-up on via the mobile and near fell off my seat when I seen the midfield selection. For me, McBain and Duncan were are two least effective players at the weekend and to see them picked ahead of ANYONE else was astonishing to say the least.....more so when you consider it was a 4 man midfield. I've pretty much given Brewster the benefit of the doubt with some of his team selections of late as you could defend them on the basis of him trying different things, but tonights line-up was suicide....pure and simple. Then to add insult to injury he puts the creative players on the bench and leaves them there till it's too late. In all honesty, I don't believe Brewster is as stupid as all that and "something else" has to be playing a part in which players are making the squad and which ones aren't. As I said before, no player is bigger than ICT and if some are causing unrest they have to be dealt with, but you have to find a way of dealing with it that doesn't have such a heavy impact on performance and results. Sending players to the "naughty corner" isn't going to help anyone, especially when it's players that are capable of turning a game. Can we start leaving the EGO's at the door and get back to putting the best available team on the park...ta muchly.

A wee bonus from Gordon Gillespie at NorthSport - a collection of pics from the Reserves Match - Clicky Clicky Great Day For a Picnic [img width=500 height=311]http://www.caleythistleonline.com/gallery/albums/upload/match_pics/2007_08/20080219_rsrvs_celtic_gg/20080219_rsrvs_celtic_gg_006.jpg

I can't see the club going in to administration as I understand that all credit and contracts are owned and underwritten by Mileson and not the club. However, Gretna could very easily find themselves in a situation where they have no means with which to pay players and no means with which to pay rent to Motherwell.....and no bank in their right mind is going to be lending them money. Motherwell would not be taking much of a gamble in allowing Gretna to continue there, they would just have to wait until the situation with Milesons health is resolved and he either writes him a cheque or the Trustees of his estate write them a cheque. For the players and staff it's a whole different ball game as many are unlikely to be willing or able to wait any length of time for payment. As others have said, Gretna was very unlikely to ever become "self sustaining", certainly not at SPL level, but I never envisaged that the threat of their demise would be presented to them in this fashion and always saw it as a drop back through the leagues as opposed to them being snuffed out overnight. If nothing else it serves as a warning to other clubs that being bankrolled by a wealthy individual is not all it is cracked up to be, and it also highlights just how bad things could get for some of the larger teams that sail in similar ships (Hearts, Chelsea) should things go pear-shaped for their owners. No real football fan wants to see any club go out of existence and not only do I hope that Mileson pulls through, but I hope that Gretna can get things sorted and see out the season and many seasons to come at whatever level they find themselves capable of competing at.

If memory serves me right then I think Alan Savage was in favour of the Intertoto, or gave the impression that he thought it was something we should be seriously looking at. I believe we would have been looking at it last year but it was CC that put a stop to it as he was working with some group of sports scientists and had a very set pre-season plan in place which would have been scuppered by involvement in the competition. I don't know enough about fitness and preparations for the season etc to say whether or not it is a good or bad idea from a training point of view, but that's for Brewster and the Coaching staff to worry about. For me, as a fan, I would relish the idea of a bit of pre-season competition against someone other than Peterhead, Clach and C*unty.......that's just getting so feckin boring and has barely changed since the club was formed, whether it is the Intertoto or something else, we could do with a change, something to challenge the players a bit more and something to get (even a little) excited about. It's the one time of the year when the club have the ability to offer us something different from the monotony that is playing the same teams 3/4 times a year in the SPL and it should be grabbed with both hands.

3rd best player on the park on Saturday behind Imrie and Grant "I own De Vries" Munro

I really need to e.mail Johnboy....it looks like IHE has got a hold of his account sign-in details :015:

It seems like forever since ICT have had a result to really give the fans something to shout about. No doubt this is in part due to our progress and fewer "big" games, even when it comes to cup matches. ICT have made some really big headlines over the years and it would be fitting if our next one was our first win over Aberdeen and a secured top 6 finish as a result. We have a habit of putting together wee runs of wins or losses and we should be travelling to Motherwell with nothing less than a win in mind in order to kick start another run of good results. Drawing games isn't a disaster, but expectations for ICT are lower among other teams and if we can get our nose in front of Aberdeen, Hibs and Falkirk then I feel the pressure will be more on them than it is on us as we approach the split. We seem to have had a season of nit-picking by fans...not entirely unjustified, but it's time to set that aside and divert our energy into getting behind the team and doing our part to help push them towards the finish line.

Neither did we, and you are a Moderator and must therefore be much higher in the importantance stakes than mere mortals. So probably not a chance for us then. I wonder now when I think back to this afternoon there was a youngish looking man with a clipboard in the North Stand perhaps it was him I can assure you that people do not gain any "importance" with the club as a result of being a moderator on here :015:

I wasn't defending Black or saying he shouldn't have been booked, but both players jumped in two-footed....how you can book one for that and not the other is what I'm saying.