ictchris

Looking at win percentages across managers careers is not what Moneyball / analytics is about.  Looking at stats like that raw don't tell you a great deal - a manager operating on a low budget with a side punching above their weight in terms of which division they are in will likely have a lower win percentage than someone with loads of money who still performs below expectations.  A good example would be Stevie Aitken at Dumbarton - he's got a win percentage of 25% so he must be a dud right?  Wrong.  He's working with a part-time club in a division that not only has mostly full time teams but teams with some of the highest budgets in Scottish football.  He's done a remarkable job to keep them in that division and to get so many wins.  

Also, that doesn't mean that Stevie Aitken is going to be a great manager if he went to a bigger club.  Look at Ian Murray, his predecessor who had a fantastic record and was hailed as a solid appointment when he went to St Mirren.  He turned into a disaster.  Dick Campbell is one of the most successful lower league managers in decades in this country but I doubt any full-time team would look at him.

I think we should've sacked him in January, or at least in April when it became clear that we were looking certain to go down.  But when we kept him it seemed as though the board had decided to persevere and keep going, thinking the experience would make Foran a better manager.  I don't agree that it would've but fair enough, it's at least a plan.  To sack him now?  It seems to fly in the face of any plan.

One reason why the club has enjoyed success in the past few decades is how we've managed changes in manager.  We've suffered from losing managers to bigger, richer clubs but we've used that to help develop the club and improve.  When Paterson left, we got money for him and recruited probably the most promising young coach in Scotland at that time and gave him a settled, excellent squad to work with.  When Robertson left we got money for him and were able to bring in Brewster, who had success in his first time at the club and improved the professionalism of the players.  Between then we had a few shakier managerial spots but then when Butcher came in we had someone who clearly had a plan for rebuilding and used his pull and influence to reshape the club for the top flight.  When Butcher left, we appointed Hughes, who got a great squad sitting second in the league and helped develop them into the best season our club has ever had, and likely ever will have.  The common factor is that we knew when to let a manager go, we knew how to recruit a replacement and we used these scenarios to advance the club.

When Dundee United came in for Hughes last season we should've let him go.  We should've taken compensation and allowed him to leave - it was clear that we were stagnating, that Hughes' signings were dross but we also had a better squad and would've been an attractive prospect for a manager.  As it stands, I think our board decided to stand too firm against United, ended up falling out with Hughes and put us in the position of costing us money and trying to build Foran as manager on the cheap.  It hasn't worked and we're now down and Foran has had his managerial career sacrificed for it.  It's a sad indictment of the management of the club at all levels.  What's vital now, though, is that we appoint someone solid and who can get us into a position to challenge to go back up, as well as moving the club forward.  Not someone who's a complete throw of the dice but equally not some dreary conveyer belt Scottish manager from the 'Jobs For The Boys' school.

People need to move on from naming ex players and managers.

Of all the names mentioned so far Paul Hartley would be the best choice - he has experience in the Championship and is available. 

Sergio Markarian as Director of Football.

At least we know which country to scapegoat if next season's a disaster

I hated the Scottish cup final, it was utter torture.  Decent first half and excellent goal but we were rotten in the second half and I'm still kind of amazed we won it.  Marley Watkins is owed a lot by this club for what he did in that game.

The semi-final is my favourite moment as a Caley fan, what a performance.

We also had Jonny Hayes at the time we had Mackay-Steven on trial.

According to the Express report about Foran today, Boden and Mulreany are free to find other clubs.  If those are two of the bad apples then questions need to be asked about the recruitment - Foran signed both players on relatively long-term deals.  He's also brought Mulreany back into the side recently and he's actually shown a bit of promise.

Boden is a bust, absolutely useless.  It's been obvious in every game he's played, he's not good enough for the Scottish Premiership.  He has looked short on confidence, sure, but I think that's due to him realising pretty early in his season that he just couldn't do it.

If you want to inject money into the club buy a season ticket and a strip.  You can't have the situation where fans 'give' money to their clubs, they need to be a going concern, to be sustainable. 

People seem to think there is a huge queue of business people with loads of cash who want to sink it into Scottish football, specifically us.  There isn't.

We got 28 points against the teams that were trying.

Here is the next season guide of relegated teams from the SPFL in the years since we were last in the second tier

2010: Falkirk, 2011 - 3rd

2011: Hamilton, 2012 - 4th

2012: Dunfermline, 2013 - 9th

2013: Dundee, 2014 - 1st

2014: Hearts / Hibs, 2015 - 1st / 2nd

2015: St Mirren, 2016 - 6th

2016: Dundee Utd, 2017 - 3rd

Works out to an average of about a fifth placed finish for the relegated team.

Talk about going into administration is probably premature. We made a small loss last financial results but the three years before made profits. We don't have any external debt either.

Who knows when it comes to football clubs finances though.

Players who are contracted until next season are Fon williams, Esson,  Tremarco, Brad Mackay, Warren, Raven, Draper, Polworth, Mulreany, Doran, Vigurs and Boden. If we want to get rid of them we need to either pay up or hope someone wants to buy them. 

I was speaking to my mate the other night on the way to the Dundee game and we really haven't had a productive close season in terms of bringing players in since 2013, when we signed Watkins, Tremarco, Vincent and Williams. In 2014 we had a settled squad and in the time since then we've mainly signed utter dross. Our squad is stale and we thought that relying on the same guys we have done would do it this season - it didn't. We need to freshen up but doing that in the Championship, with a manager who hasn't given any indications he'll be able to step up to the challenge, is going to be very hard.

As said above by Caley Stan, easily our best performance of the season.  Changing things again was interesting and Richie went for a 4-4-2 with a narrow midfield, which we've done before but without much success.  This time though, it worked a treat.  Keeping the game narrow, compacting the midfield allowed us to dominate with the ball as we had lots of options to keep possession and get the ball up to the strikers and without the ball, as we had players to assert pressure on Dundee.  

Collectively the midfield were all excellent, working hard and using the ball well when they had it.  Vigurs was the standout though, an immense performance in the anchor role.  He maintained possession and broke forward when he had to, probably the best game he's had since signing for us.  Laing and Warren also had good games, dealing with everything that Dundee could give us - not a lot but we've not exactly been freezing teams out this season.

Mckay had a great game up front and Fisher took his goal well - Fisher works hard though and is a target for crosses, which gives us another option. 

The one downside is that Dundee were dire and I could easily see Hamilton turning them over on Saturday.  Hopefully Vincent and Ross knock their pans in trying to get the win for us.

We will lose this game, absolutely no doubt about it.

All thsi stuff about how much it means, huge game, fight for it.  It's meaningless.  We aren't good enough.  We continually present the opposition with goals and can't score goals ourselves.

Obviously it was good to win but there were still glaring deficiencies in that team.  Hamilton were utterly abysmal in the first half and in particular were all over the place defensively.  We should've scored more goals against a side like that and shouldn't have to rely on a penalty to win - it was the correct decision but a lot of referees wouldn't have given it.  In the second half we sat too deep and were really dominated by Accies.  There were also several really poor defensive moments in the game - in the first half we let the ball ricochet about the box following some soft set-pieces which allowed Accies chances.  Better teams and better strikers would have scored.  Also, Henri Anier worked hard but he has to be one of the worst players we've ever had.  If he was slightly capable we'd have scored more goals.  It's not quibbling either - if we'd won 4-0 that would be very important in terms of goal difference.

On the plus side we did win, that's good.  We did the more basic things in defence better and looked OK going forward - Mulreany had a good game and is growing into being a first team player.  Draper and Tansey in the middle are a no-brainer, if anyone can explain why Draper wasn't in the team for the derby then please share.

We don't know what sort of squad we will have next season but I don't look at any of those teams as easy touches.  Sides like Dunfermline, Dumbarton, Queens all have sides that are established in that division for years, they understand what you need to do in that league.  We don't.  We'll also be up against two or three of Dundee Utd, Falkirk and Morton.  Falkirk are perennial challengers - sooner or later they are going to have to make a proper run at the title and if they don't go up this season then they'll be one of favourites in a league without Hibs, Hearts or Rangers.  

The STV report said that a board meeting was convened to discuss Foran's future.  The club statement says that in fact, the board meeting this week is routine.  Of course, you can use a routine board meeting to discuss his future.  

13 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Sustaining a Premiership team long term in a remote location with a turnover of £3-4M, crowds often struggling to reach 3000, relying on windfalls and asset sales, and with no current benefactor is a highly marginal activity. Rather like walking a tightrope (there you go - non-political analogy this time!) it doesn't take much of an error somewhere for things to go badly wrong and that's what may very well have happened this time. The nature of any errors can certainly be speculated about, but any inquest is best left until a final conclusion has been reached. Efforts are meanwhile best focused on maximising such chances of survival that remain. Getting angry about the situation isn't going to make it any better.

If anything is remarkable, it's that errors capable of upsetting the tightrope walker which is ICT have been as infrequent as they have. Indeed the largely error free transition (one major exception) from the Highland League to the Premiership in 10 years and remaining there for 13 with just one instantly redeemed hiccup is what has been truly remarkable, and not that the odds this time appear increasingly likely to catch up with the club.

I wouldn't perhaps go as far as saying that Premiership status has become taken for granted. However I do think there needs to be a greater awareness each relegation time of the "there but for the Grace of God go I" principle (religious analogy now ) which has often given Inverness Caledonian Thistle a hefty rub of the green in very marginal circumstances.

It's perfectly possible to sustain a Premiership team on our budget, in our location and with our crowds.  We've been in the top flight for more than half of our history, us being in the division isn't some sort of outlier.  We don't have a much lower budget than the teams we are competing against, we aren't playing in Fair Isle, we are a couple of hours drive up the road from the central belt.

There isn't any reason for the factors that you list to explain the season we've had - I look at two clubs in Partick Thistle and St Johnstone who get similar crowds, have a similar budget and aren't exactly glamour locations, it hasn't held them back from both having excellent seasons and building the kind of team we used to have.

Finally, you can't say that we've had the "rub of the green" - as a club we've made good decisions in how we've spent our resources in terms of managers, players and staff.  That's why we succeeded not luck.  We've failed this season because we've made poor decisions about how we spend our resources on those things and that's lead to the disaster that we've had.  

1 hour ago, Charles Bannerman said:

That sounds a wee bit like the claim that the NHS in Scotland is OK because it is allegedly better than the NHS in England. What I am saying is that there are SOME Inverness fans, including those booing loudly at full time on Saturday, who have been very quick and early to turn on various parts of the club. One concern I have is that, notwithstanding the fact that the team's situation is indeed very bad, some fans are already assuming that relegation is inevitable so are demanding a reckoning now rather than at the end of the season.

It's just as well James Vincent didn't come to that conclusion in the 2015 Scottish Cup Final, or the scorers of the four goals after Ayr United went 3-0 up or the team and management after Dundee built up a huge lead in 2010.

I'd rather gouge my own eyes out than discuss Scottish politics online and it's completely unrelated to anything being discussed so I'll leave your opening sentence to one side.

We have had an absolute abomination of a season. Four wins is abysmal, unacceptable. There is no other team in Scottish football who have a record as bad as us. It's one of the worst seasons in recent SPL history, it's certainly the worst team we've had in the top flight. The idea that booing after a 3-0 home defeat represents fans being very quick to turn in the club is bizarre. I think our fans have been too slow to express how bad things are, mainly because of who the manager is.  

Listing comeback wins from the past is all well and good but we aren't talking about those games. We are talking about this team, this season and, based in the evidence we've got, relegation is overwhelmingly likely. We need to win about as many games in our final six matches as we've done in it's 32. I can't see anything in our recent performances to suggest that we are in the verge of a step change in how we play. I hope we do and the split can throw up unexpected outcomes but I'd say that we are odds on to go down. 

2 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

.

. I also believe that a certain sector of the Inverness fans need to take a look at themselves in all this. Constant undermining of players and management in various ways, including booing at matches, will have done nothing to boost confidence and morale. This is without doubt a "perfect storm" scenario where a number of adverse factors have conspired together but the reaction and to be blunt, the Holier Than Thou self-righteousness of SOME fans has most definitely contributed.

It isn't the fans who have won four games all season or assembled the assortment of dross we have a first team squad. The idea that we have an ultra demanding fan base is laughable, plenty of other teams supports would've been baying for blood months ago. Fans should hold the team to the highest standards possible, not just happy clap along as the fat lady sings.

Hughes is only on a short-term contact at Raith, we should get him back.

It's all very well looking at other teams but we need to win games, starting on Saturday.  Just do anything to get a win, cheat, fight, kick, bite our way to three points.

Can't see it though.