ictchris

I doubt it's contractual as other Championship teams release longer coverage - Dunfermline for example.

According to transfermarkt the current youth players in the first team squad are: Cameron Mckay - GK - 20 Ryan McRitchie - DF - 18 Liam MacDonald - MF - 17 Kier Smith - MF - 18 Mitchell Foy - FW - 17 Andrew Macrae - FW - 19 We've currently loaning out Stephen Foster - GK (Nairn County) Daniel Hoban - GK (Brora Rangers) Aidan Wilson - MF (Wick Academy) Alasdair Stark - DF (Wick Acacemy) Can't say I know anything about any of these players to say whether they are worth a shot in the team.

I've sent Fraser a DM, I'd encourage anyone who has moaned on here to do the same.

I'm going to send you a message on this Fraz. A couple of other fans who aren't in here have suggestions as well. Will do it later today.

I love all the talk about "balance of power", like we are the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Here is an article about the analysts that worked on recruitment for Leicester City. I realise that we don't have a budget approaching theirs but are we even looking at anything like this? Do we have people looking at players in this way? http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/how-leicester-city-unearthed-mahrez-341044

I'll stick to moaning about it on the internet I think.

We've apparently signed Coll Donaldson. not promising tbh. Maybe a new start is what he needs, let's hope so,

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.