CaleyD

:015: Actually, Hastings used to play the sweeper role not to bad in the dark and distant past if my memory isn't failing me, but he has so much more to offer playing on the left it would be a waste to move him.

Any 1st Div team with an ounce of sense will be biting Dundee's hand off to sign him. Wouldn't be suprised to see any of the top 4 from there make a move to sign him.

Agree totally that Fraser shouldbe given his chance, but as with any position it's always healthy to have someone there looking to knock a player off the top spot in order to keep them on thier toes.

Jamie MacDonald - plays for Hearts U21/Reserves. Signed full time from their Youth Programme in 2003/04 and is apparently a good young keeper with bags of potential. He's stood in as a practice keeper at Scotland First Team training camps and I believe he has Scotland U21 caps to his name.

We've suffered bigger losses and managed just fine - Mark Brown was a great keeper for us, but Mike Fraser is more than capable of stepping up to the plate and has a more rounded skillset and the potential to be even better. BTW, have you all seen Fraser kick a ball? They'll be shouting for the pitch to be lengthened just so he can keep it in the park :015: "ICT have a free kick on the edge of their own area....whats this??? ICT have put all 10 men inside the oppositions box.....Fraser take the kick...OMG OMG...straight in the top corner....What a Goal!!!!!" OK, so I got a bit carried away, but the guy can fair kick the bloody thing...and more importantly, he can kick it straight.

Yup, and on this same thread ironically :015:

**Clacher Holiday in Glass Half Empy Shocker** :016:

Personally I don't give a feck who's done what in the past or who's scored how many in the past. It's whats being done here and now that concerns me and the bottom line is that Dargo is a shadow of the player he was last season and the Wyness/Bayne combination up front is proving to be our best pairing this season.

The whole team got off to a poor start in our first SPL season, and I think it's just a convenient "get out" to blame it on Caff. We won our next 2 games (home to Livingston and Dundee) and never had another win for 7 games. Hardly conclusive proof of an immediate/permanent turn around following Caff's sending off. Also, out of interest - Caff made 9 appearances (8 Starts and 1 Sub appearance) for ICT last season and of those 9 games we only lost 1 of them (2-1 away to Celtic).

Blacks' ego is big enough without adding to it, also, he seems to have enough trouble taking responsibility for himself and his own actions, let alone the whole team. I think Munro is the best shout so far for a few reasons. Playing at the back gives you a natural view over the whole team/pitch and allows you to see whats going on. So if somethings not right or not working they are best placed to see it. A good defender has a controlled aggresive nature (on the park), it's what makes them succesful. It is therefore easier for them to channel that into communicating to teammates if they need a word whilst on the park. And probably one of the biggest plus points in Munro's favour is that he is well respected by the other players and management. The other plus is that if the decision was made now that it was to be Munro (doesn't have to be made public) then their is a chance for him to get a guiding hand from Dods over the remainder of the season in order to prepare him for the role.

No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No Moving Hastings in to the middle would be an absolute catastrophe for the left side of the park. Every single move we make down that side of the pitch involves him and when he has someone other than McBain playing in front of him the link up play is immense.

:017: - Let me get this straight. Dargo should be praised for not going in to practice on his days off, and Bayne is being slated for it.....Barman, I'll have a pint of what this man's drinking. Bayne obviously realises that he has a weakness in his game and is working hard to improve on it. Perhaps if Dargo showed the same self awareness and was willing to do something about it then he may just recapture the form he showed last season.

Rather suprsied to see Cowdenbeath release him now aswell. Unlikely we would have been splashing too much cash so I wonder if we might see someone from us go on loan there till end of the season?

Proof that he deserves credit for last season, and I doubt many would question that. This year however, he been a shadow of the player he was back then. Their must be a reason for that, and IF Charlieis looking to move him on then that may be part of the reason.

Everyone seems quick to jump to the conclusion that he was on the bench because of some kind of falling out. It could just as easily be that CC believes we needed a different kind of player/partnership up front for this game and it was purely a tactical decision.

Seems that Motherwell have refused to change the fixture on the grounds that it would cost them in the region of £30k revenue. BBC Clicky Wonder how much the change is going to cost us?

I have to admit that I was of a similar mind to RiG when I first saw Bronsons post, but knowing it wasn't serious I decided to let it run and keep an eye on it to ensure it never got out of hand instead of removing it or blowing the joke straight off. Wyness_Is_God - You can be certain that neither Big T or Absent Friend will have been in any way offended so no need for apologies. You aren't the first to be taken in by something like this and you can be sure you won't be the last - Live and Learn :001:

:015: at the last line. The rest of it makes for interesting thought, and although I would never want to see the club spending beyond it's means it does show why some are keen to push the limits of the bank balance in attempts to achieve an extra couple of league places. My thought for the day on this point... Is their a sensible balance of risk/reward to be found in taking on short term loans of "bigger" players with higher wage demands in an attempt to secure a top 6?

I know what your getting at Alex and I agree. What I was trying to focus on was that the phrase "wage structure" seems to have gone and is no longer being trotted out by the Board, The Manager and the players when interviewed on such things. It used to be the standard excuse for us not being able to hold on to players, but no longer seems to be part of the defensive arsenal. In other words, the club etc are making positive noises about negotiations instead of the usual, much expected, negative. I think most of us will realise that, strict wage structure or not, we have to continue to keep wages etc affordable, but the emphasis on 'one team one pay deal' seems to have gone and perhaps the club have realised that we do have players who are justifiably worth more than others and are making changes/offers accordingly. Nothing may have changed other than attitudes to such things, but even if that is the case, I still think it's a plus point that perhaps those involved are seeing us/themselves a little less as the "wee team" and more on a level playing field with others and that's increasing positive talk - something thats not happening all the time (e.g. CC's constant mention of "a club of our size") but it is a shift in the right direction.

Are we seeing the starts of a slightly different train of thought with the new chairman now in place? In the past when it's come to contract talks with players the publicity from the club has always emphasised on the fact that we have a wage structure in place and offers would be made in line with that. I've noticed that during this transfer window and leading up to it the response to these queries from the club has been a bit different. Not once in any press article, in the Q&A session we did with Alan Savage or in any interviews with CC have we heard the "wage structure" being mentioned. We still get comments about having to watch the budget etc, but we are also hearing a lot of talk about players being given not only enhanced offers but "Greatly Enhanced Offers". This point only struck me tonight when I was listening to CC's post match interview when he was asked about Dods and he made the above statement. Dods has said that he wants to move at the end of the season and it was mentioned earlier in the season that he was looking for a deal that would take him through to the end of his playing days. All in all I can't help but wonder if having a new man at the helm has brought a different line of thought to the whole "wage structure" issue and the club are now taking player salaries/packages a bit more seriously than some of us might have thought they did in the past. Granted we saw David Sutherland play hardball with the grocer at the start of the season, but I feel that we are maybe seeing a bit more value in retaining players than we are in letting them go for any and all offers received, and we are in fact looking to push the player salary budget a bit more. Whether that comes at the expense of bringing in "bigger" players or not is yet to be seen, but I think that the early signs are pretty positive and we might finally be starting to view ourselves as a bit bigger than we may have done the last 2 or 3 seasons.

It's not nice to see any player get a serious injury, and you have to wonder what it will take for Brewster to decide enough is enough. Not denying the guy still has the ability to continue playing, but surely thier comes a time when you realise that your doing yourself more harm than good by pushing it so much, especially when your picking up injuries like this? These are the kinds of injuries that will really take their toll in later years and this dislocation on top of his knee injury from last year will really be punishing his body. He came into professional football later than most and has had a pretty succesful career, nothing he does from here on in is going to improve his "status" and he's already set for life (financially) so it's not like he needs the cash. He's obviously a great man for fitness and training and I think it's about time he concentrated on that and bowed out as a player before he really comes a cropper. He made a (positive) reputation for himself whilst here with what he did for our fitness, he should be taking advantage of that whilst it's still fresh in people's minds - opinions may change. I mean, if he gets any publicity for pushing himself too far and to the brink of these injuries, it's going to put doubt in clubs minds about whether he may push those he is coaching too far.

Even if he had signed for us now, CC had said he wouldn't join us until Monday so I wouldn't have expected to see him in the squad. Don't think it would be a good idea to drop him straight into the starting 11 anyway - he (and the squad) will need a few training sessions together under their belt to acclimatise first.

Don't think you can simpy dismiss Bayne because he doesn't score goals. You have to look at how many goals he contributes too and the part he plays in making opposition defence really have to work hard which creates opportunities for others. Nobody in our current squad works a defence harder than Bayne.

Doesn't matter how many times you say the same thing - I still disagree :016:

Disagree - I think Bayne and Wyness have shown recently that they are our strongest partnership up front (at the moment at least) Also a little strange that you think Wyness and Dargo were strong up front against Stirling when Wyness was actually playing in behind a front two of Bayne and Dargo. This would suggest to me that Dargo can/does only perform at his best when he isn't asked to do any leg work and someone else is doing all the graft in order to put the ball at his feet.