Renegade

I recollect some of that as well. IIRC, Mckay, Meekings and Warren would all have missed the final. How we've gotten out of this, I do not know. I consulted the SFA bookings/suspensions sheet a couple of months back and only Foran was on it (one Scottish Cup match). Presumably the players in question did their suspension in the league?

Had a look at his Twitter there. While he might be on the wind-up with his latest 'Scottish people watching Braveheart' tweet, it doesn't come across well and seems a bit of a weirdo. His open love for Celtic is also unwise. Doesn't strike me as the sharpest tool in the toolshed to be honest.

Now I've been known for some wacky and unconventional tactical plans in the past, but here for the first time ever, is one we can all partake in. If ICT are leading by a single goal in the dying minutes and the fall somehow winds up in the ICT area. Do not I repeat DO NOT throw it back until you absolutely have to. The longer you hold onto the ball, the more Hearts will be under pressure. Kick it away, bounce it around your section like a volleyball or chuck it behind you. Go down on top of it even and stay there as long as you can. Do whatever you can to waste as much time as possible. The longer the ball is out of action, the more and more pressure you'll put on Hearts. If it so happens that MacDonald is in front of us in the second half and is calling for the ball back, throw it away from the general area he is in as hard as you can. The further away it goes, the more time it'll waste. If you do throw it at him, do it as hard as you can! A broken leg or whacked out tooth will need treatment and thus waste more time. There you have it. Finally some things we can do to ensure of an ICT victory and make some history. Do what you can and stay alive! Some of us are counting on you!

He'd be a way better signing than Gary Glen, that's for sure!

We should start the game like this (should we kick off of course!):

Just been reported that Skacel will not be returning to Hearts, but they do have an U21 striker coming in, almost certainly Ibe from Liverpool.

His antics in Perth when he told them he'd be staying and then never turned up to sign the deal and went off to someone else, was classless as well. Don't want that twit back!

Come short as usual? ICT's ten year rise to the SPL. Challenged for a European all season last season despite one of (if not the smallest) wage budget in the SPL. Challenging for third again this season. In the Semi finals of a major competition for the second season in a row despite the aforementioned small wage budget. I don't like your definition of falling short! It's quite obvious that he's referring to ICT's habit of getting really close to stuff and then blowing it over the years. It's nothing to do with the club's current position in the league and the cups or any of that stuff. ICT have had major matches to make win cups etc., and have blown it on a number occasions. That is a fact.

HT - Hearts 0-0 ICT FT - Hearts 2-0 ICT Hearts 1st scorer - Paterson ICT 1st scorer - Mckay Time of 1st goal - 47

Last season, despite only using two of our three subs, ICT went into a penalty shootout with a goalkeeper who'd never saved a penalty for us, with one with a fairly decent penalty record sat on the bench. Reguero was a great keeper for us, but when up against a spot-kick, he couldn't catch a cold. There can be no doubt that Dean Brill has been a great signing and has put in some great performances. While he hasn't had to face many penalties so far, he is yet to save one. Ryan Esson has yet to play a first team match this season, yet seems to have a knack with penalties. Infact, ICT have won every shootout that Esson has been in goal for (wins against Stenhousemuir, Partick Thistle, Montrose and Arbroath). Is this just a coincidence? I don't think it is. Penalty shootouts are not the lottery some people portray them to be. He also has a pretty good record with penalties in open play as well. Switching keepers is something that has been done in the past. In the late-90s while manager of Leicester, Martin O'Neil took off Tim Flowers in the dying minutes and replaced him with the Australian keeper Zeljko Kalac. This was done due to the fact that Kalac is 6"8 and would thus fill the goal more than Flowers would (in the end it didn't matter as Leicester ran down the other end in the dying seconds and scored the winner). Seemingly in South America, it is common for teams to go into knock-out games with a 'match keeper' and a 'shootout keeper' on the bench. Should the scenario be repeated on Sunday and the game goes to penalties and ICT have one more change to make, should we (assuming Brill plays!) use it to put Ryan Esson in goal?

Really on the whole, he wasn't very good was he?

Top class input there. Will read again.

I'm still utterly bamboozled that out of the 42 candidates that applied for the job, Paul Telfer somehow winds up getting interviewed and seemingly finished second for the job, ahead of Hartley, Shiels, Levein and many others! Now here's the thing folks. Richie Foran is 33 and has just signed a three year deal, which will almost certainly be his last. Hughes has a two and a half year and aims to be at this club for five (his words not mine). I'm speculating here, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if Hartley wished to re-shape the club in his own image and likeness, and probably people like Levein would have wanted to do the same - a long term project. The board went for Hughes, as they looked at him as a kind of Terry Butcher MK2, who would keep the club around about this level. When this is done, it leads them to the final piece of the puzzle, which is Richard Foran taking over as manager. Hughes would be nothing more than a stopgap manager, and maybe Telfer wanted to be the same. This is not what Hartley et al would have wanted. It was often said on this forum, prior to his appointment and still to this day, that Hughes is not the man who will or can take this club forward. Maybe that's because, he's not supposed to.

One thing that thing better than Butcher that Hughes does, is substitutes. It's nice to see players coming with less than seconds remaining, but still, there's nothing wrong with making a half time change. It was clear in the 4-0 defeat in Perth and it was just as clear on Saturday, that Polworth was struggling big time. A headless chicken, nothing was coming off and we were lacking bite in the midfield bigtime. Why persevere with him any longer? We had Tansey, Vincent and particularly Draper on the bench, why not put one of them on instead? First half changes are now commonplace in France, while Marcelo Bielsa is known to make two at half-time if things aren't going to plan. If I can tell that a player's struggling after even half an hour, surely Hughes can as well. There's nothing wrong with early changes and keeping struggling players on, such as Polworth on Saturday, will not help them or the team, in any way.

I think after watching us struggle to get back into the game on Saturday and having to end it with a weird 3-6-1 looking formation, we really really could do with another striker.

I remember we did one of these last time! Looking forward to it? I'm awfully nervous about this one.

Brian Clough lasted 44 days at Leeds. On the continent and in South America, it's common for managers to be punted after only a few months. Getting to the final next week, could well buy him some time. Failing to reach the top six with this squad and from the position he inherited the squad from though, will lead to questions being asked.

All very hypothetical renegade, and there is now way if knowing that Hartley would do any better. No, but he would have been the more inspiring and exciting appointment. I'll tell you what he almost certainly said. Buzzwords aplenty such as "business as usual', passion, honesty, boilersuits, playing good football and learning from what he's done in the past. Hughes has lived off his Falkirk legacy and this constant insistence that he plays "good football". First of all, that's a myth. All of Hughes's teams have attempted to pass teams to death with very little penetration up-front. It was like that at Livingston and at Falkirk, as well as Hibs, before they got in to hoofing it. The Falkirk legacy is also an interesting thing. They may have won Division One twice, but did so with a fairly large budget. As well as this, it's widely regarded that he would've been sacked had they not reached the Scottish Cup Final and a good chunk of the fans there do not remember him fondly at all. The question now is, how long does he get? What happens if lose next Sunday? We really should be beating that Hearts team no matter how up for it they are. What about the league? Surely if we don't finish in the top six, questions will need to be asked of Hughes and those who chose him.

The thing is, if you go for someone who' 'like Terry Butcher', you're just going to get an inferior version. Hughes might have some positive aspects, but he isn't Terry Butcher. Paul Hartley IMO was exactly what this club needed; fresh blood, new ideas and a new approach. Had he brought his assistant Paddy Connolly with him (a former Fulham scout), he could've easily replaced Marsella. Going for someone who's like Butcher, but not as good, will not make the club go forward, if anything we'll be lucky to stay where we are. If the main factor about the manager is his 'experience' at this level, then would any old man would have been acceptable on that basis alone? Would people have been happy with say the aforementioned Ian MacCall or Alex Smith, or Craig Brewster back again? Would we have gone for Hughes had he still been employed by Hartlepool or Livingston? I highly doubt it. It was all down to the board going for the cheapest option. This could very likely backfire on the club bigtime and Kenny Cameron must then hang his head in shame. Don't know about Sheerin, but Murray probably will be.

So much for being away from his son, taking himself out of the running and all that other nonsense. Cameron wanted to take a 'different route' - the cheaper, mercenary route. We chose a manager with a record no better than Jim Duffy's, Ivan Golac's or Ian MacCall's, when we could have had one of Scotland's best up and coming managers. Disgrace.

What I want to know, is if Laurence a la last season, believes this game is the biggest in the club's history!

One thing I noted in Hughes' first interview after becoming manager, I recollect him saying words to the effect of "Give the ball to Billy and he'll score". Under Butcher, Mckay was one of an often expansive number of options, but we seem to be trying to get the ball to him by any means necessary, even if that means whacking it at him up against two towering centre-backs. This seems to be a tactic Hughes has implemented from the start, but while I can understand the logic in it, I'm not sure it's really worked out the best for either Mckay or the team as a whole.

I don't like tennis! What I'd go with - Brill Raven Warren Meekings Tremarco Draper Shinnie Doran Ross Watkins Mckay Subs - Esson, Devine, Williams, Vincent, Tansey Foran in for Tansey if he's fit enough.

Warren was alright, Brill had little to do and Mckay had no service. The rest though were very poor. Doran, Williams, Shinnie and Ross weren't at their best, while Polworth was rubbish and put in a performance almost as bad as the one in the 4-0 defeat at Perth. It was really a case of one team being fairly poor, and another being even worse - we were the team who was even worse. The players don't look as up for it, certainly nowhere near as much as they did last week and we lacked creativity and fluidity throughout. We seemed too keen to sit back as well, hardly ever looking to intercept the ball when it's live, nor pressing the man in possession. Things need changing if we want to win next week and getting a result, is nowhere near as likely as some people would like to believe.

No I haven't. I hate everyone.