Renegade

It's on Tuesday I believe.

I've seen tons of ICT officiated by Willie Collum yet I don't think I've ever seen him have a good game! And I thought the ref's performance in Perth last week was bad, yesterday's display was even worse!

In all honesty, you'd have thought he'd never have been out!

After today's performance, I'd be offering Hogg a one year deal.

They may have played well on the whole, but playing an inexperienced full-back out of position against Higdon would be a mistake and could potentially be pivotal in our European conquest.

^ No sense of style!

Funnily enough when Butcher was at Sydney his dress sense was a particular focal point of negative press. They thought he looked like a hobo!

I like the Ricardo La Volpe style. Jean-wearing and donut eating in the dugout! Seems that wearing more casual clothes is fairly common in South America. I'd much rather see a manager wearing smart looking jeans than godawful shorts and pulled up socks (or even worse leggings )!

If we don't get Europe, we'll only have ourselves to blame.

Do as things stand now: Signed up till the end of season 2013-14: Ryan Esson Richie Foran Ross Draper Conor Pepper (Butcher and Malpas are also in this category) Signed up till the end of season 2014-15: Josh Meekings Nick Ross Gary Warren Graeme Shinnie Billy McKay Daniel Devine David Raven Joining next season: Ben Greenhalgh Danny Williams _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The following players are out of contract at the end of this season: Owain Tudur Jones Simon King Aaron Doran Shane Sutherland Gavin Morrison Chris Hogg Scott Mathieson Martin Laing Loan deals expire at the end of this season: Charlie Taylor Deals unknown: Liam Polworth Matthew Cooper Leaving the building: Andrew Shinnie Antonio Reguero Already gone: Philip Roberts Jordan Gibbons Latest developments/changes in bold.

Oh and before I forget, Tade was rubbish! Some ICT fans applauded him off the park though

Managers wearing shorts should be banned IMO.

Something like this please -

Indeed. Hence why I said he's too slow and cumbersome to play there.

It would be a bad idea to go with Devine and Taylor as the centre-back pairing IMO. While Devine has done well since signing, he's still pretty inexperienced, while Taylor is inexperienced and would also be being played out of position. If it were a smaller quicker striker up top for Motherwell, then that pairing would be okay, but Higdon is a totally different kettle of fish. We need to go with Meekings and Devine at centre-back for this game. Of course that leaves us with questions as to who to replace Raven with; Jones is known to play as a right-back for Wales, but for my money, he's too slow and cumbersome to play there. As I said in the thread, I think Draper could be a very good full-back, but McFadden will pose as a massive threat. Maybe for that reason then Draper and Jones should go into the middle to deal with him, with Taylor or Shinnie at right-back. Playing a back paring of Devine and Taylor though, would be a big mistake IMO.

McCall's done well I think. His hairstyle loses him points with me though.

I think the worrying thing for me is that we've barely created any chances for weeks. Aside from Doran's consolation at Celtic Park and Draper's header in the 0-0 St Johnstone game (as well as that half chance when Doran was through on Mannus in that aforementioned game), we've looked nothing like scoring, with many of our attacks breaking down three-quarters of the way up the park (often by Doran dilly-dallying on the ball too much) and other tame long shots. I can't help but think that our set-up is setting us back. Let me make this categorically clear - Draper is not a winger and never will be and Doran should not be played on the left. Of the former, you wouldn't play Jones out there and the role doesn't suit Draper. Butcher seems to be looking to turn Doran into a left-sided Hayes, but that's one thing he won't be. Doran is not as direct as Hayes was and isn't the type of winger who suits cutting inside and shooting. He's a far better player on the right, getting to the byline and crossing into the box. To be fair to Butcher, it was refreshing to see him go with a more open set-up on Saturday, with Doran on the right and Jones and Draper in the middle (Andrew Shinnie had a slight hamstring injury apparently), but after Raven was sent off, we didn't look like scoring. Draper onto the right and Doran to the left wasn't the way to go. I'd far rather have seen Shinnie moving to left-back and Foran going onto left wing. It was almost like the set-up was to play for a goalless draw and bringing on Nick Ross as a lone striker was never going to improve our goal threat and just compounded that belief. I think if anything that was a game that showed that Sutherland won't be around these parts for much longer, as he would have been a far better lone front man than Ross. If we are to be beat Motherwell, we've got to play a more open game as we did in the first half of the season, trying to stifle the opposition like in Perth will only hold out for so long.

Butcher seems to think now that it was a red card. I don't think it was - it wasn't a goalscoring opportunity, nor was he the last man (whether that's a rule or not) and I think he went down very easily and was an accident more than anything else. Not a red card for me, but oh well.

For someone who said that he "couldn't understand why anyone would want to leave ICT" just a few weeks ago, he's taking his time in signing up!

Whether or not he's wanting going to go I don't know, but I believe that he is a target for them.

Hamilton Accies only had two stands when they were in the SPL (and that little gazebo that was hardly ever used). Was New Douglas Park a laughing stock as well? Having been to away games at nearly every SPL ground, I can say from experience that the TCS is certainly not the worst.

There's been a tip-off recently at the Renegade Rumour Headquarters that Doran could be County-bound. Anyone else heard this?

Reguero Draper Devine Meekings G.Shinnie Jones Doran-----------------------Taylor Ross McKay Foran Subs - Mathieson, Hogg, Pepper, A.Shinnie, Sutherland, Polworth, Cooper I don't fancy Draper on the wing like Butcher does, but I wouldn't mind seeing him tried out at full-back replacing Raven, he's certainly big, strong and fairly mobile. I also think that Doran is a far better player on the right hand side, as well as going with a slightly different formational set-up, as the 4-2-3-1 has become stale and predictable, often leaving McKay with little to no help. Devine and Meekings as they are to combat Higdon, with Jones sat in front to help out and Taylor just ahead of Shinnie on the left to deal with Humphrey.

I believe you have to have 7,000 seats or something to play in the Euro qualifiers at your ground. You have to have at least 8,000 for the group stage. We have 7,711 just now I think, so we'd have to get 300 seats from somewhere!