ictchris

2 hours ago, Northern_jaggie said:

If I was in charge of the team I'd leave out both Vigurs and Polworthless for a few games.  Their constant involvement grates on me and I think the way they play has strong positives, it also has many outweighing negatives.  The very first thing a midfielder needs to do is to protect the team and the mindset of these two leaves us short  in this department.  This is why we will miss big Drapes so much.

We literally don't have any other central midfielders who have ever played a minute for the first team.  Vigurs is also clearly one of the few players we have who can pass the ball and create anything.  

Towards the end of last season Vigurs played better when he was given a deeper role in a midfield four.  Could we go back to that?  Say something like this

------------------Vigurs-------------------

--Polworth--------------Calder/Cooper---

----------------Trafford-----------------------

Strengths of this are that Vigurs is probably our best passer and can use the ball from deep and Polworth has been effective from the right before in terms of goals and assists.  Splitting the midfield like this also gives more openings for passes and space and stops us being one dimensional.  It also allows us to be compact and (hopefully) protect the back four.

Weaknesses are that Vigurs can be prone to switching off defensively and not picking men up; I'm not sure either Cooper or Calder are suited the the left midfield role, although it's their stronger side they are more wide players or full backs.  This formation also means we are reliant on full backs for width and the performances of Seedorf and Chalmers against the Pars left a lot to be desired.  Also, I think Trafford is more of a central midfielder than an attacking one so it might be unfamiliar for him.  

I don't recall many people criticising the contracts offered to Draper, Raven etc.  If anything fans clamoured for it.

Interestingly, we've signed Trafford on a three year deal and paid a transfer fee for him, although considering the length of contract it's probably minimal.  

We paid £228,000 a year to Tulloch?  Goodness me.

33 minutes ago, Council Juice said:

I'd still like to see someone in a DoF role. Although maybe not Grassa. He's had his time. I've mentioned him before but I think CC would be quite suited to that role. He's got a long term connection to the club. An affinity with the club and lives locally. He'd be in for the long haul. He's articulate and intelligent. Has a good bond with fans. Has football knowledge. I'm not saying it has to be him but he ticks a lot of boxes for me.

We need someone who could combine a DoF/head of recruitment/head of youth development type role. Someone with a model and general oversight of the football side and scouting. Leave first team football to the first team manager. He still has final say on players. However the DoF is the one doing the graft of inviting players for trial. Collating scout reports etc. 

I think it's high time that the club developed a model of football business. A philosophy that generally dictates signings and youth development up to the first team. Hopefully the new board recognise this as the last few years have just been a continuous run of false starts in that regard. 

We've appointed Danny MacDonald to that role.

No Dundee United fan has anything good to say about Donaldson during his spell there.

we seem to just be trialling guys because they are there. Hopefully I'm wrong.

I think that we've had such a terrible time that people want news to be good. In truth, this isn't 100% good or bad. It's good that new people and potentially new investment is coming in and they'll bring their own strengths and contacts.

Dougie MacGilvary was chairman when the club was formed but he was also running the club when it ran up significant debts. People bemoan David Sutherland and Tulloch now but they basically saved the club in the early 2000s. I remember MacGilvary opposing the investment that Tullochs made in the club at that time that started his exile. No-one could possibly argue that MacGilvary was right about that. 

Savage became involved in the mid 2000s and what he's remembered for is the Marius Niculae signing. Savage invested in shares to the value of Nicuale's first year wages and we had ourselves an international centre forward. Although Niculae was a top player it didn't end that well - the club got involved in a dispute with the player and we had to fight him into the Court of Arbitration for Sport over a payment he said was due. Savage left the board claiming time pressure with his business but it was generally seen at the time that Sutherland and Tullochs didn't like the Niculae scheme and Savages higher profile ideas.

in addition, people are talking about Grassa etc coming back. We can't keep going back to how things were in the past, we need to develop a plan for the future for how to succeed as a club. I appreciate that there isn't a big queue of people willing to put money into Caley but we need to have a forward thinking club rather than trying to recreate something. As well, we suffered the consequences last season of having a manager and a chairman joined at the hip. If we'd sacked Foran in January we'd have had a better chance to stay up,

So I'm in the fence regarding this development.

Highland Hospice shares have been sold to Alan Savage and Iain and Dougie MacGilvary.

1 hour ago, Jaggernaut said:

I thought that Jordan Roberts had loads of potential. What was the story with his leaving, did he want to go or did ICT not want him.

He was injured a lot of the time he was here and was only a one-year deal.  There were stories that he had a poor attitude in training but he looked dangerous in the games he played.

I was being generous including him, Doumbaya, Fisher and Mckay as positive players.  None of them played more than half a season worth of games.

The players we signed during the two seasons following the cup win.  I've bolded the ones who I think had a positive impact on the team.

Owain Fôn Williams

Jordan Roberts   

Iain Vigurs   

Ryan Williams    

Nathaniel Wedderburn    

Andrea Mbuyi-Mutombo    

Liam Hughes

Dani López     

Alex Fisher     

Tobi Sho-Silva   

Miles Storey     

Scott Boden    

Kevin McNaughton    

Henri Anier     

Jake Mulraney     

Brad McKay

Lonsana Doumbouya  

Dean Ebbe     

Billy King     

Larnell Cole     

Jamie McCart     

Billy McKay     

Louis Laing

Doumbaya wasn't a footballer but did score some goals and Mckay didn't have the impact we wanted but did OK.  Alex Fisher did well when he played but wasn't used at all and Jordan Roberts also missed a lot of the season but looked dangerous when he did play.

A parade of utter diddies though.

10 minutes ago, IBM said:

Reading the statement we can see how much debt our club had by clearly paying players and managers huge wages which were well beyond our means.

How much debt did the club have? It should be made clear in previous financial statements. From memory, the level of debt was pretty much zero. We made a profit in the majority of the last few seasons.

The players we have at the moment looked incompetent against Dunfermline - tactics can't really stop things like defenders not winning the ball when it's hit towards then, kicking the ball aimlessly into channels where no one is running or standing off when they need to make tackles.

I have some questions about the statement

- Was the appointment of Finlayson ever supposed to be temporary or short term? I can't recall it being described as such.

- Who made the £500,000 investment mentioned in the statement?

- The statement says that we didn't budget for selling Draper yet Robertson said in the press that he won't receive any of that money for players. What is it being used for?

- I'm pretty sure we had statements promising better communication earlier in the summer and that the communication got worse following that, what specific changes and actions have been taken to improve things?

- How much money was the club paying Tullochs for the stands every month and how do we intend to use that money?

59 minutes ago, Renegade said:

We've been playing a flat 4-4-2.  That type of system was done away with years ago.

Yeah, it was REALLY flat, Vigurs and Polworth didn't drop off or make forward runs. Maybe if you had wide midfielders who could tuck in, a striker who could drop deeper and a centre half who could carry the ball out we could get away with it but we have none of those things.

He was utterly anonymous yesterday.

We seem to have signed this Trafford guy from Finland, I'd expect him to play in central midfield further up of Vigurs. I had thought that we were wanting a diamond midfield with Vigurs deeper and Polworth attacking but they didn't seem to do that yesterday. . 

I realise it's early days but Robertson sounds like he doesn't have a clue what he is doing. After the early season results he slated the team and now says that the players think they are bigger, better than they are. He signed seven of the players on the pitch yesterday. His tactics are dated and completely ineffective.

Last season we stuck with a poor manager until the bitter end, are we going to make the same mistake again?

Mulreany is an attacking player yet in nearly 40 appearances for us he hasn't scored or had an assist. He has pace but needs to use it to create chances, he doesn't do that at the moment.

I heard a rumour that Alan Savage and Dougie MacGilvary are looking to buy the Highland Hospice shares.

12 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

You mean wealthy individuals making charitable donations to shore up and subsidise a company which, for a  variety of reasons, is unable to generate enough income to produce the results some of its supporters expect?

How many charitable donations did the club receive over the last fifteen years, thirteen of which were played in the top flight and the other two saw us win the division that we are now playing in?

Today's XI

Ridgers - An utter bombscare. Didn't deal with a pass back for the first goal.

Seedorf - Got roasted by Cardle, an absolute hosing. 

Elsdon - Immobile, lumbering, terrible touch and awful distribution. Hesitant in actual defending as well.

Mckay - Again, used the ball terribly, nervy and hesitant in defending.

Chalmers - Stood off for several of the goals, hit aimless balls to no-one in possession. 

Mulreany - Drew a couple of fouls, including for the goal and created moments of danger but he had no end product.

Vigurs - Used the ball well and was probably our best player.

Polworth - Played centrally and was utterly anonymous, aside from getting booked.

Calder - Another practical no-show. Had zero impact. 

Baird - Worked hard but looked in a different wavelength to his partner and missed chances.

Oakley - Again worked hard and had a could of decent touches but did nothing.

Robertson - Very poor. We played 4-4-2 but with two wide men and Vigurs and Polworth flat in the middle. That meant we couldn't really control the midfield and were pushed out by Nat Wedderburn.  We didn't seem to make any runs into space and were really, really static when attacking, no-one dropped off and tried to get any 2-on-1s or overlaps. This meant we had to hit long balls which didn't work and gave possession back to Dunfermline, who could then punish us by attacking our terrible defence.

We were absolutely abysmal. We have signed a parade of useless jobbers and bit-part players. Our defence was terrible, you can't really explain just how bad they were. Dunfermline could just hit a ball long and they had a chance to score, so poorly organised and hesitant. They couldn't use the ball at all, so many loose passes, straight to the opposition. We passed the ball more times to Wederburn in that game than we did when he played for us!

Vigurs did OK but the rest of the midfield were static and anonymous. People have said we should play Polworth centrally but he did nothing other than get booked. If he wasn't an Invernessian people would be baying for his blood. Mulreany drew some fouls with his pace but that's he did, his delivery was useless. Up front, Baird and Oakley looked on completely different wavelengths at times but Baird worked hard and Oakley had some decent touches.

Make no mistake about it though - we are relegation candidates in is league. What two teams are going to finish above? 

How will we line up for this one?

------------------- Ridgers ----------------

---Seedorf ---McKay---Elsdon---Calder---

----Mulreany --- Polworth --- Vigurs --- Chalmers---

---------------------Baird------------Oakley--------------

21 minutes ago, Scotty said:

His CV isnt that impressive and his club career in Canada before that is not exactly stellar and was at a pretty low level (maybe North Caledonian as someone talked about earlier!) but the header was pretty good ! I cant imagine we scouted him so if we are indeed offering a contract are we signing players from YouTube highlight reels again or is he coming on trial with a contract dangling like a carrot if he impresses ? 

He's got the same agent as Susan and Seedorf, we seem to be using them for recruitment.

42 minutes ago, bdu98196 said:

While I agree as I've been saying much of this already its probably not a surprise, these guys are directors and usually in any industry people that get to that level very rarely tell the truth or have much integrity, its about self preservation (lying to shareholders and media to make an organisation look to be performing better than it may be) or self promotion (look what I've done, the work I've won or what I've put in place mainly through lies and the analogy of once we have the money we will figure out how to deliver - usually as cheap as possible).

. 

In my experience the opposite tends to be true, people who succeed in life and in running their own businesses are rarely liars, rip off merchants or untrustworthy. In my working life I've worked with and for pretty senior people in very large organisation and they tended to be straight down the line.

you do get liars and bullshitters in many organisations though. I think when people are out of their depth and don't know what they should be doing they often end up trying to cover for themselves by covering their arses and trying to deflect things.

We can add lying about the Draper transfer to the list. Also, I see from the Courier that none of the transfer fee will go into players. What is it being spent on?

Its clear that the board lied when they initially said that we would be keeping the squad that finished last season, they lied when they said that we needed to maintain season ticket prices to ensure we could compete in this division, they lied when they said that Draper requested a transfer.

Why are the board constantly lying? People end up doing this when they are either completely out of their depth and incapable of carrying out their duties or they have a moral lacking that leads them to lie. Neither option is particularly attractive. I notice that John Robertson has also not backed the clubs standpoint, which is pretty telling.

Also, this is going to have a huge impact on our club. Players used to see a move to Inverness as a good thing for their career, the chance to compete at a high level and win a move elsewhere - Rooney to Birmingham, Watkins to Barnsley, McKay to Wigan etc. We had a good reputation. Now we are lying about our transfer dealings, hawking players around for transfer, refusing to play players if they don't move. Why would anyone come to us? I know for a fact that in Scotland our club is seen as an irrelevance at best, as useless and a joke at worst in the football media and playing circles.  What's happened this summer is going to have significant knock on affects to our clubs ability to survive.

 County this and County that - it doesn't make a difference what they do. We need to sort things out for ourselves not spend all the time like a bunch of fish wives worrying about someone else.