ictchris

Butcher's touchline ban starts next week.

Rooney

If we win our next three games we are right back in the race. People need to man up and stop bleating about blooding youngsters - that's surrender.

---------------------Esson--------------------- ---Proctor----Bulvitis---Munro-----Lionel---- ------------Cox--------Duff-------------------- ------Hayes-----Sanchez-----Imrie---------- -----------------Rooney-----------------------

That would make sense. What I would really like is for us to sign a coupld of defenders. In an ideal, Abramovich-buys-Caley World we'd buy a couple of new full backs and a Pavels style centre half.

Just because it?s rare for clubs to go straight back up doesn?t mean that it can?t be done. However, there are reasons why relegated clubs struggle in the First Division. 1. Upheaval in squad/team. Most clubs who are relegated have to cut costs and this includes freeing players who they would most likely keep. In our case we had to let Filipe Morais, Brian Kerr and Pavels Mihadjuks leave. These three players were all regulars last season and would have been again if we could have kept them. As well as losing good players, the turnover in the squad means that there will be a settling in period for the new players. This will cause inconsistent performances in most cases. 2. Adapting to a new division. Most teams that win the First Division have played in the league for a few years. Falkirk won the league in 2003 and 2005 ? they were relegated in 1996. We won the league in 2004 ? we were promoted in 1999. St Mirren won the league in 2006 ? they were relegated in 2000. Hamilton won the league in 2008 ? they were promoted in 2004. St Johnstone won the league in 2009 ? they were releaged in 2002. This suggests that squads and clubs need time to grow accustomed to the demands of the First Division. In the case of sides who are relegated, it takes time to adapt from grinding out points in a relegation fight to the confidence and arrogance to go out expecting to win every match that is required in a title challenge. Promoted sides need time to gain experience and find their feet at a higher level. The only exception during this time to this rule was Gretna, who effectively bought their way into the league by signing up players with experience. 3. Different tactical requirements. This links with the previous point. When Caley Thistle won the league we played with three up front, we were the leading goalscorers in the league and regularly scored four or five goals in a game. When we were in the SPL we were renowned for our tight defence and ability to grind out results. Clubs the size of Caley Thistle can only really survive in the SPL by adopting a more defensive style of football. After being relegated this needs to change but altering the footballing focus of the team is difficult. Combine this with the first two factors and you can see why many teams struggle.

Only Partick Thistle were relegated after finishing in the bottom two. Livingston were relegated due to entering administration and Gretna went into liquidation and ceased to exist.

The whole issue with signing Marius needs to be properly looked into. There's something not right about the way the transfer was conducted, from Savage allegedly buying shares in the club to fund the wages, to the fact that David Sutherland appeared in the press claiming we couldn't pay his wages to the fact that the board seemed to hawk him around club after club in a desperate attempt to sell him to the fact that we apparently have withheld payments to Marius that he is legally entitled to. The entire affair is a shambles and isn't the way to run a club. To be honest, I feel sorry for Marius in the whole thing - he appears to have been royally messed around. Imagine turning on the news and hearing that your employer has been telling the media that he is unable to pay your wages; it's unacceptable.

Get him signed.

Can we not give Shinnie a chance? Lionel is pish.

Nooooooooooooooo! The times I've seen him there were catastrophic. One at Tynecastle makes me shudder. You may find this hard to believe, but Russell was actually signed as a STRIKER at Aberdeen. It was Ebe "pass the malt" Skovdhal who switched him to a midfield role. :icon_police: This was discussed on Saturday. Russell, I think, holds several records for goalscoring in Aberdeen youth leagues and represented Scotland as a striker in the Under 16s. Amazing really, I can only think of one goal he's scored from inside the box since we signed him.

-------------------Esson------------------ --Proctor--Bulvitis---Munro---Golly----- -------------Cox------Duncan------------ ------Hayes------Sanchez----Foran------ ----------------Rooney------------------ Rosscoe has been poor this season.

Niculae scores twice for Dinamo against Sturm Graz in the Europa League.

Is on Monday at 2:30pm. Apparently it's live on Sky Sports News. Here are the teams in the draw: Aberdeen Celtic Dundee United Falkirk Hamilton Accies Hearts Hibernian Kilmarnock Motherwell Rangers St Johnstone St Mirren Airdrie United Ayr United Dundee Dunfermline Athletic Inverness CT Partick Thistle Ross County Stirling Albion Albion Rovers Forfar Athletic Montrose Edinburgh City Inverurie Locos Irvine Meadow Clyde / Livingston Cowdenbeath / Alloa Athletic Morton / Dumbarton Raith Rovers / Peterhead Stenhousemuir / Cove Rangers Wick Academy / Brechin City I have highlighted my four choices for the draw, all away from home. I also wouldn't mind a crack at either one of the Old Firm, seeing as they are both utterly abysmal this season.

We probably should have taken a point from that game, I think. We started well and it was a great ball from hayes for the goal, I'm not sure if Tokely did get a touch on it. After this we had another couple of opportunities (Sanchez putting the ball wide when he should have done better) but let Partick come back into the game. We seemed to lose any outball up front and every time our defenders had the ball all we could do was give the ball away again. According to my mates (I was going for a slash at the time) Esson made a wonder-save from a header and then a Partick striker sent a free header straight at the keeper from inside the six yard box - they really should have scored. Second half continued in the same vein but with the fog coming in I couldn't really see what was going on at the other end. The first goal was a header, I think but the second goal is a mystery to me. We did step up our performance a bit, Tuffey had to push a Hayes drive behind for a corner and Bulvitis sent a header just past. In the closing minutes Foran started to assert himself and sent a low cross for Cox which the home defender somehow managed to prevent going in - a remarkable clearence. All in all, I thought we could have taken a point from the game but I can't complain too vociferiously about losing. We really do look brittle at the back and, if we aren't on a game, we don't have a great deal of penetration up front. The period of pressure we had at the end of the game didn't see us creating any great chances - we seem to just chip the ball into the box andhope for the best or, these days, give the ball to Hayes and hope he can beat his man and hit a good cross. Foran had a realtively quiet game but started putting himself about towards the end - we need this from him for the full 90 minutes if we are going to challange. Pretty low away crowd from us, which is probably due to the game last week and the 'season'. Without trying to turn this into a car-crash point scoring eye roller like the other thread, I thought the home crowd was quite low - there seemed to be massive gaps int he home fans. Fair play to the young lad at the front for taking his top off when Partick scored their second though :025:

Song suggestion, to the tune of that annoying Jan Vennegor of Hesselink song that the Celtic fans used to sing: Belle and Sebastian are sh1te Belle and Sebastian are sh1te Belle and Sebas- Belle and Sebas- Belle and Sebastian are sh1te Brown flared cords are unacceptable! etc

Absolutely - the most important thing for international football with a side like Scotland is to be hard to beat. Alex McLeish and Walter Smith achieved that and we need to get someone in who will make the team difficult to play against again. A good benchmark is Greece, who overcame a lifetime of non-achievement by appointing Otto Rehhegal. Manager's who go on about playing great football, building fantastic teams are usually pish. The most important thing in football is to win. Look at Tony Mowbray, currently making a hilarious balls up of Celtic.

I should be there.

Same team.

Congratulations to Dundee. I don't think I've ever seen a game with two more contrasting halves. We were excellent in the first half, Johnny Hayes was in great form and we definatley should have scored more goals than we did - the disallowed goal (not sure what caused it to be chalked off) and Sanchez hitting the bar from six yards could easily have ended up as goals. We really bossed the game and had lots of possesion - Ithought that Duncan in midfield had a great game as well. Second half we just gave too much time and space to Dundee and stopped pressuring them. Withthe quality of attacking players they have you can't really do that and we were punished. It's a cliche but defending a two-nil lead is tricky but the one thing that you must do in this situation is keep things tight just after taking hte lead and we didn't do that. I thought Dundee could have stretched away after they equalised but the game settled down, although we hardly created another chance. Poor stuff from Dougie Imrie, glad to see our captain have a go at him for getting sent off in that way. hayes showed that he should be in the team ahead of Imrie anyway. From a Caley perspective, the game was another example of our failings thsi season. We are good going forward yet brittle defensively and have made a habit of conceding goals in bunches: Partick 26/09 - Three goals in six minutes QotS 10/10 - Two goals in seven minutes County 7/11 - Two goals in two minutes. Dundee 22/11 - Two goals in five minutes. Looking at our squad, I don't see what we can change to stiffen us up at the back. If we have any cash available in January we need to bring in a player like Mihadjuks or Dods, a dominant centre half that we've been missing for years.

KEANO-KEANO Well said Keano.

Lets be honest - everyone loves it when their team wins by cheating. I remember loving it when Juanjo, Barry Robson or Wilson used to dive to win penalties.

What a joke. The Irish need to get over themselves. Perhaps we should ask for a replay of the Celtic game in 2004 when Lennon dived to get Juanjo sent off? Then Celtic could ask for a replay of the Old Firm game in 1997 when they had a good Di Canio goal chalked off wrongly. Henry should be condemned - for not celebrating like Adebayor, that would have been funny. Edit: I recall a few years we got a 1-1 draw with Celtic at home after being 1-0 down at half-time. McGeady (as usual) did a number on us in the first half but in the second we had four players all booked for individual fouls on him (Bayne, Black, Hart and Tokely). He quietened down, we equalised and got a point. Was that cheating?

I just read the 'Interesting' thread and, aside from a possible prosecution under the Trades Descriptions Act, I don't see anything wrong with it. A couple of posters had different opinions from other posters and there was a bit of discussion/debate/arguing about it. That's what the forum is about. There was no personal abuse of anyone and no breach of any forum rules that I could see. Perhaps we are all being too sensitive?

Most football forums are full of ill-informed idiots arguing about things they barely understand and find impossible to articulate. Would we have it any other way? All forums have these debates, issues with 'schoolkid' posters, problems with the mods. To my mind it's part and parcel of a forum.