ictchris

Robbo didn't 'unearth' Donaldson and Austin, they were both well known players in Scottish football, who played for other clubs in the same league as us last season.

To be fair to Robbo, he was in the position of needing to get players in fast last summer and we clearly signed people who were available rather than assessing them and making an informed choice.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/inverness-caledonian-thistle/1479420/caley-thistle-manager-john-robertson-seeking-quality-over-quantity-this-summer/ Headline is a bit meainingless - no-one ever says "we are seeking quantity over quality" - but the article does offer a good contrast from last season to this. I'd imagine we might have the odd trialist in for pre-season training, we usually do, but sounds like we may be settled for next season.

An excellent point made by @hislopsoffsideagain on Twitter - 2014/15 - Dundee Utd finish 5th with 56 points. 2015/16 - Dundee Utd relegated with 31 points. 2014/15 - ICT finish 3rd with 65 points. 2016/17 - ICT relegated with 34 points. 2015/16 - Ross County finish 6th with 48 points. 2017/18 Ross County relegated with 29 points. 2016/17 - Partick Thistle finish 6th with 42 points. 2017/18 Partick Thistle relegated with 33 points. Four teams relegated in the last four seasons, all of whom were in the top six a year or two previously. Two of those sides, us and County, won trophies in the two years before. Dundee Utd reached the league cup final the season before they were relegated, and the Scottish cup final the year before that. Scottish teams are on a knife edge - lose even one or two good players or make a poor managerial appointment and you can drop like a stone very quickly.

Livingston are a good team on a shoestring budget, they’ve done a great job. Defensively Lithgow, Halkett and Gallagher are solid at the back and I really like Scott Pittman in midfield, he’s a real buzzsaw. Partick are horrific, really bad. Danny Devine was particularly terrible, they had nothing in the middle of the park and they didn’t offer much up front.

Northern Ireland is charming in July I hear.

People are quite right not to go to pre-season friendlies, they are complete *****. I used to go to all of them when I lived in Inverness, what an idiot. I once drove, on my own, after work, to Huntly, watched us lost 1-0 and when I got home, found out that it had actually been 1-1, I'd missed the goal by arriving late. Having said that, I do remember seeing Steve Hislop pinging in a 35 yard volley against QPR and realising that we'd signed a diamond in Ian Black during friendlies. So maybe I'm being unfair.

Do we need another central midfielder? Beith, Polworth and Trafford can all play there. Hutton is also a bit older than the players we've been looking at.

Vigurs was a great player for us last season, deserved his Player of the Year awards but he was always going to take a bigger offer. He's 30 years old, this could likely be his last long term deal. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/aldi-whisky-world-best-ranking-glen-marnoch-speyside-single-malt-scotch-glenlivet-a7896116.html ?

Leaving aside the forums latest Walter Mitty, football fans really need to have a look at themselves sometimes. Being a teacher and working in the emergency services are vital jobs, you need to be trained for years and dedicated to your profession to do it. Why should the authorities in charge of these services push a load of ex footballers ahead of other applicants? The entire world does not have making Caley a good team as a goal. And specifically to teaching, you really should have a degree in the subject you are seeking to teach, how many footballers meet that criteria? If footballers want to retrain as teachers then that’s fine but the world doesn’t owe them a living.

Why are you lying in a football forum about having a brother who teaches in China?

You can't move for businesses who are desperate for unskilled part-time new starts in their mid 30s, right enough.

GDPR sounds like an organisation Rangers and Celtic fan sings songs about.

Robertson came into a situation where he has to scrabble about to put a team on the pitch, having to sign players from YouTube videos or on agents say so. It meant we couldn’t really get a team straightened out until a quarter of the way through the season by which point we’d dropped so far behind that it was almost insurmountable. Also, some of the players signed didn’t gel into the team earlier -Ridgers, Oakley and Chalmers for example, improved as the season went on and Austin was injured almost immediately in January,

This is an excellent point. People are saying that we can't compete due to finances or crowds - Livingston have an average crowd of 1000 less than us, they have finished second in the league with a team made up of, not to be unkind, youth players and cast-offs. St Mirren have won the league by miles, clearly the best team in the division. This comes off the back of some absolutely horrible seasons, with some parallels to our own fall. They won a cup but didn't build on it and appointed a shocking manager leading to them being relegated. Last season they had an utter disaster, they were 10th for practically the entire season, didn't win a game until December, only won two games in the first two thirds of the season. They went on a great run and built on that. If we recruit sensibly and retain some of our best players then we can challenge next season - properly challenge rather than the late scramble we've had this season.

We are back on the 'body language' / 'attitude' stuff for Polworth again I see. Liam Polworth has had an absolute beast of a season. He has had 16 assists in the Championship, six more than the next best player, more than gjuys like Lewis Morgan, Stephen Dobbie. That's playing in a team that's been in the bottom half the table for practically the entire season without a striker who has a decent number of goals. On the run that we've had at the end of the season he's scored or assisted eight of the twenty goals we've scored.

I didn't see any of our games against Queens this year so have no idea if he's any good or not. If he has two legs and can walk ten yards in a straight line he's an upgrade on Seedorf.

Stranraer fans on P&B on Angus Beith When he came to us he was described as a deep-lying midfielder, and he has enough dig about him to sit deep, but really came into his own when the manager encouraged him to get forward and gamble in the box. By all accounts he barely scored in his previous loan spells and played a deeper role, but with us he scored on his debut, and went on to grab 8 goals in 14 games from midfield, all from open play. Seemed to love his time at Stair Park. Has an eye for goal, works hard, tracks back, basically an all-rounder and a great attitude by all accounts as well. If you can clone him you'll have a very good team.

it's going to be hilarious when the announcement is a new away strip or something banal like that.

I’m sure that the announcement will be the conclusion in the investigation into the Twitter account favouriting porn accounts. That or the first round of the Duncan Shearer Memorial Under 11s Seven A Side Tournament.

He only played with Stewart a few times in 2000 and he was never at the club at the same time as Brian Thomson. He had his best partnerships with Paul Ritchie from 2001 until 2003 and then a purple patch in the SPL when he and Craig Dargo combined. Looking back he didn’t have the pace or power to make an impact as a striker at the top level but playing in the First division his touch and finishing ability elevated him to a different level. The guy was a joy to watch and fitted perfectly into our team at the time. The run we went on before Pele left in the winter of 2002 has to be some of the best football I’ve ever seen from us, bodying teams left!right and centre. Glorious.

Our league record so far against the teams we are still to play (Dumbarton, Livingston, Dunfermline and Morton). P -11 W - 2 D - 3 L - 6 F - 8 A - 16 I think some people are underestimating how hard winning these games is going to be. It's possible but I think it's very unlikely. We haven't beaten Morton or Livingston all season.

If we win all our remaining games we'll have won eight games in a row, our best run since we won nine in a row in 2010 on the way to winning the First Division title. It's a lovely thought but it's very unlikely. We've barely won eight games all season.

Polworth now has 21 assists in all competitions this season. He's also scored four goals. We've scored 59 goals in all competitions, meaning that he has had a direct hand in 42% of our goals. That's not taking into account other goals that he's had a hand in, such as the goal of the season against Dundee Utd at Tannadice. I haven't gone through and confirmed it but he's probably had a hand in half our goals.