Renegade

As others have said, I'll have to wait to see it in the flesh before I make a proper judgement, but I think it's alright. I don't hate it and I certainly think it's better than last season's (not difficult though!), but I do think some of the designs submitted on here were better and stripes would still be my preference (though that hooped design looked alright). Again as others have said, had the middle stripe been solid red or black in the middle in might have looked even better. Also, it might just be the light but it looks like a different shade of blue and is there no black in it at all? All in all, by no means our worst kit ever, but not what I would have gone for. A 6.5/10 from me.

Do we really need another central midfielder? Striker should be the priority and maybe a right-back IMO.

Look at the way the red kind of swoops past the collar. Also, unless it's a red herring, it's blue and thus not stripes, hoops or a half and half thing and is also different from the last one. This is thus my prediction from what's on the Errea site - I'd be pretty disappointed if that's it to be honest. Looks like we've got virtual ex-midfielder David Davis modelling the shirt though!

I wonder, is the club going for a predominantly blue home kit lately and bringing in that "Thistle" looking away kit, to try and attract refuseniks to come? If so, that ain't going to work.

Here's the new Cheltenham kit - Something like that would('ve) look(ed) pretty cool IMO.

Outsiders call us Inverness. Nearly everyone i know in the central belt know us as that. That's my experience as well. In Inverness from what I've found, we're usually called Caley or Caley Thistle. Almost everyone to a man and woman I've spoken to about ICT referred to us as Inverness. One person I know was really surprised when I informed him of this as well!

We need to do something to set us apart from the rest and stripes seem the most logical way to do it. In my experience talking to ICT fans on here and at matches etc., the vast majority seem to want stripes. The board don't seem interested though for some reason. This chopping and changing is a lot of nonsense. Twenty years old now and we still don't seem to know what we are.

I may have dreamt this but did you not used to be able to get into home friendlies using your season ticket?

Think we need to move on tbh. I actually like our current red and black away strip so don't have any issues. Why are Thistle relegated to the away shirt? It should be an equally coloured home shirt (red and blue with black and white trim). That should be our identity. What I'm saying is it wouldn't bother me personally if the strip home or away was red or black. Think folk make too much of this nowadays. Just my opinion. I also think lots of red and blue together looks cool! I always thought it bared more resemblance to the seats on the Megabus!

Think we need to move on tbh. I actually like our current red and black away strip so don't have any issues. Why are Thistle relegated to the away shirt? It should be an equally coloured home shirt (red and blue with black and white trim). That should be our identity.

Absolutely. In our history, we've only had one shirt that had more red than blue* and even that was cutting it fine. Predominantly blue shirts again and again in the mostly blue "Caledonian" Stadium. From the outside looking in, this looks like less of a merger and more of a takeover. If I was an old Thistle fan, I'd be pretty annoyed. I still live in hope that it'll be stripes (though hoops may be an interesting design), but I won't be very pleased and certainly won't be buying it if it's another poorly designed predominantly blue kit with apologetic hints of black and red. * This one

I see Glentoran charge £1 per vote. Say every season ticket holder voted, that'd be at least £2,000 more in the bank for a start. I don't buy that stripes look old fashioned. Do Celtic's hoops look old fashioned and thus need changing? Or what about Arsenal's red shirts with white sleeves number? These may be "old" but they are essential elements of the club's identities. Whether the more recent ones might have sold well is one thing, but we've been trying to create our own identity for quite a while now. Continuing to look like a mini-Rangers, will do nothing to further that IMO.

Why can't the club come up with three or four designs and let the fans vote on it? I was looking up Glentoran's website the other week and they seem to do with every season. Why can't we? http://www.glentoran.com/news/vote-now-glentoran130-shirt

How much red/white/black is on it?

This isn't the first time Errea have been a shambles. I remember when the club brought out that black away kit with the fans names on it, it didn't appear until about October! Why we've continued with them I do not know.

What are doing for a third shirt this year? Keeping the white one again and sticking Subway on it?

It's funny you should mention that actually. From my research, a merged Inverness of some description wasn't just an idea that popped into someone's head in the early 90s. I remember seeing an "On this Day" thing in the Courier I think it was from the early 30s where a merger of Thistle, Caley and Clach (and possibly Citadel) fell through at the 11th hour. Mergers are nothing new and we're far from the only one. Aberdeen are a three way merger - Orion, Victoria United and another team named Aberdeen who played in white and blue shorts, merged in 1903. Ross County are the result of merger between Dingwall Thistle and Dingwall Victoria United. Motherwell are the merger of Glencairn and Alpha. Inverness Thistle were a merger in some ways as well with the incorporation of Inverness Union and Crown. I was told once that one of things the merger did was clear the deadwood. You know, the people who probably had a big team anyway and went to the matches not so much for the football, rather as a vehicle for drinking and having a scrap. They won't all be like that, but I'd guess that a good chunk were and good riddance to them. But how many refuseniks are there? I don't know, but I'd guess not that many, certainly not anymore. But here's the thing - if there's so many of them, why wasn't the merger voted down? If there's so many of them, why didn't they make more of an effort to fight back? Why didn't they attempt to resurrect a Caley and a Thistle in the Junior leagues as FC United fans did years later? The simple reason is, a lot of them probably never have existed and nowadays, they're a very small group, getting smaller and receive far more attention than is justified.

I was there! I was very impressed with Tansey. He seems a much better player than when he was with us the first time round and as others have stated, Ferguson looked very lively when he came on. His pace and work rate remind me of Craig Dargo in some ways and I think he's a player who could have a good future with us. Also, I don't want to see Mckay taking a penalty again ever. How many times will he miss before somebody realises that he's just not good at them? The stats don't lie. On final thing I must say and it was the same last year, is that as long as that management team stay in charge of Forres, we really should consider whether it is worth playing them again. Three players taken off injured and why? Because of the brutality of the Mechanic's team. Hard tackling, elbows flying in all over the place, taking out the man, all totally unnecessary in a friendly match. I wonder if it's worth the hassle playing them again next season.

We couldn't when Butcher looked at signing him a couple of seasons ago (I think).

It wasn't a back three. It was Meekings-Draper-Tremarco-Shinnie in the second half. Ooops, I hadn't realised that Shinnie had dropped back, although I did think that one fantastic saving tackle by Tremarco was wildly out of position for a left back, brilliant as it was! IMO centre-back is Tremarco's best position. I like a couple of others am starting to get concerns over Hughes's philosophy for the coming season. I remember when he got the job, he said words to the effect of "Go out there and express yourself", well that's not what's happening. There seems to be parts of the game now, where certain things are banned. Crossfield balls, crosses into the box and long distance shots seemed to be banned. We keep trying to score a goal that's a pass into the net. That worries me.

It wasn't a back three. It was Meekings-Draper-Tremarco-Shinnie in the second half.

Do you think Ross County had all these arguments twenty years after their merger?

Enrique Pia - Colombian centre-back on trial in 2008 around the same time as Daniel Wagaluka. He'd previously played in Venezuela and deemed not big and dominant enough by Brewster.

Seemingly after Atiku's deal with us fell through, he played in Sweden and then Greece (he turned down a three year deal at his previous club in Cyprus to go on trial with us) and was called up to the Ghana national team in 2011 before the match got cancelled due to the London riots! Apparently, he later signed for Swindon leaving before ever playing a game and has never played since. He was also once on trial with Michael Essien at Man United after good performances in the U17 World Cup in New Zealand but the contract offer fell through after work permit issues. He was also on trial at Borussia Dortmund at one time and was regarded as the next big Ghanian player but it never came to be.

I wonder if the plan is to go a back three. At the last game of the season, Hughes seemed to take a leaf out of the Guardiola/Bielsa book and put Draper at the back as a kind of ball playing centre-back. I'm can't remember where I read it, but I'm sure I read somewhere once that it's easier to retain possession with three at the back than with four. As we've seen at the world cup, a back three or a back five with wing-backs seems to be coming back into style (Chile, Argentina, Netherlands, Costa Rica, Mexico have all done it at some point as well as probably others). As others have said though, we don't need another centre-back. Warren, Meekings, Devine are all strong capable centre-backs and Meekings is a good distributor in my opinion. Tremarco also played well there in one game and Raven, Draper and even Foran could all fill in there if needed, as could Jason Brown. Shinnie could probably do a job in there as well. A new right back would be nice, but by no means essential. Raven is obviously the first choice and Meekings and Shinnie are capable in there as well. Warren can also play there and Devine could get away with it if we really needed to (he did have a shocker there against St Johnstone in the 4-0 game though). Seemingly, James Vincent can also fill in there in emergencies and Tremarco could probably get away with it as well. If we can, we should use whatever funds we have to bring in another striker - I think everyone's in agreement on that and after that, using it to retain members of the current squad. A right back would be nice, but not essential and a new centre-back is not needed at all, though if Hughes can get one for little money on loan, then that's not so bad.