Renegade

OMG!!! Say what you like but that's what I was told and it comes from someone who certainly knows their stuff. More so than me and certainly more so than you.

Heard at the game today from usually a very reliable source that a lot of the players are absolutely sick of Hughes's tactics, his insistence of passing the ball at all costs and his reluctance to change. The 'favourited' tweet from a certain ICT player the other day, seems to confirm this. Worrying if this continues and coming from where it came from, it's almost certainly true.

There's a famous quote by Thomas Jefferson which is "Dissension is the greatest form of patriotism". So it is with this. I don't want to criticise Hughes, he seems a nice man and does seem to genuinely want to be here, but the fact of the matter is, I have to. There's nothing wrong with playing possession football and we all want to see the ball on the deck, but Hughes strikes me as a man who is a slave to his philosophy. People are debating whether or not it is Dean Brill or Josh Meekings to blame for the second Dundee United goal, but they are missing the elephant in the room entirely. If they weren't instructed to pass the goal around the defence so much, this wouldn't have happened and Tuesday wasn't the first time they've been caught out, as we know. Hughes's teams have had this problem at the past. His Livingston side did much the same thing. Keeping the ball at that end of the field and not going forward with it, just invites the opposition to press forward and put us under pressure. This then leads to the inevitable pass back to the goalkeeper to hoof the ball up the park. If this is 'good football', I for one am not impressed. What has become of our slick and effective counter-attacking? A good example of this was on Tuesday. Vincent won the ball when the United centre-backs were back-peddling. Under Butcher he'd have driven forward or switched the play and had teammates striving forward to score. We were good at that. What did he do? Put his foot on the ball and pass it back the way. There was no drive to get forward from any of them and any chance of creating a goalscoring opportunity was gone. When we do get forward, we seem to be trying to pass the ball into the net. It's usually ineffective and we need to do more of what Polworth did on Tuesday - putting a foot through the ball. People can talk about making progress and waiting for things to click, but as I said earlier in the thread, Hughes was manager of Falkirk for seven years, yet they didn't score many goals and were nearly relegated as a result. It should be no surprise that our goals have dried up as well. You can tell things aren't going to plan by looking at Foran. He's getting back to what he was like a couple of years ago when things didn't go to plan. An irate seething man, who's liable to do something rash, with his general performance negatively affected as a result. Does Russell Latapy actually do anything? He looks to me like a boy on work experience. Remember, this was a man who's played at the highest level and managed his national team, yet he stands out the front watching, only for Hughes to come over and whisper in his ear every few minutes. What's the deal with that? And here's another thing: Has anyone else noticed that we've been poorer since Duncan Shearer disappeared from the dug-out? Has his absence had an impact on the players? Surely he'd be a good foil for Hughes as well. Did the board make the right choice? I don't think so. Our results and performances have nosedived since he's come in. Should Hughes be sacked? Absolutely not. He was the man chosen by the board and given a two and a half year deal. He deserves to get the end of the season and up until the first round of fixtures next season. If we're heading on downward spin and things are really looking bleak, then that'll be the time to really discuss whether he is the man for the job. Don't get me wrong, there's a number of things I do like about Hughes. He seems a genuine and nice man and I like the way he's not afraid to get the youth involved, but things have slipped to a worrying state when you consider where we were and what we were like when he took over. He shouldn't and will not be sacked any time soon, but if things continue as they are over the course of next season, then serious questions will need to be asked.

He might have a bit of skill and pace but he'll never be a good player I reckon. He's a quintessential modern-day brat. An absolute ned, who think's he's miles better than he is, and include that with the fact he's an angry little man who, much of the time he was here, swaggered around like he couldn't care less. I couldn't stand him when he played for us. A career in the lower echelons of the English southern leagues awaits.

Ian Murray might have been quite good actually. Done well with Dumbarton. Laszlo seems a nice man, but he's very very defensive. That wouldn't suit us either I don't think.

Kevin MacDonald was my preference when Butcher left and I think he'd have been a shrewd and effective choice. Whether he'd want to move back up here or not is another matter and I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to stay down south. Jimmy Calderwood though? No way! I heard a few horror stories about him when he was at Ross County, so I wouldn't want him any near our club. Seemingly he was extremely arrogant and walked around Victoria Park like he was doing them a favour.....that's when he was there of course. I heard he'd regularly turn up at 11am on the Thursday, leave at 11.30am, same again on the Friday, go to the game on Saturday and then go back home to the central belt and not re-appear until the following Thursday! He also appointed his son as assistant. He might have a good record at Aberdeen and Dunfermline (though Kilmarnock and County chose not to keep him), but he's a horror of a man, has a habit of falling out with people, plays dreadful football to watch and would probably plough the team full of journeymen Dutchmen, which is not what we need at this club.

Brill Raven Warren Meekings Shinnie Tansey Draper Watkins Vincent Williams Mckay Subs - Esson, Foran, Devine, Polworth, Christie, Ross, Tremarco Presume Doran will be out again.

Here's Hadjuk Split's old away kit - Could work actually. I wouldn't mind swapping between hoops and stripes either.

I went for ages not knowing how to do it as well, but I took a partial screenshot and then loaded to Tinypic.com.

Hoops - Red dominant version - Stripes - Alternate Version

Something like this - This isn't real shirt by the way, just a mock-up for some other team who's fan want to change colours.

Think most of the talk was in the thread of the question I asked. I also came up with (I think it's fair to say) ubercool design, but couldn't find the way of getting it from my computer into a post!

Think I'm right in saying that ICT's first ever game in England (and possibly our first ever match outside of Scotland), was in some barracks somewhere against an army XI or something.

I think I'm right in saying that Stagecoach were one of today's sponsors!

Agreed with what others have said. We were far better in the second half when we went a wee bit more direct and up and at them a bit more. Good management by Hughes to change the formation and the approach slightly. That's the way that suits us and they we should play all the time. One thing I noticed in the first half was while we had more of the ball, Partick seemed to create more with it in the times they did have it. We were more like that in the second half. One thing though was that James Vincent was a passenger today. Quite simply, he is not a winger and I'd have hooked him for Watkins at half-time. It's a bit like playing Tansey or when Butcher used to play Draper out wide. He should either be played in the middle, or not at all. A winger he ain't. Thought Danny Williams was quite good mind and I was surprised when he was the first man taken off.

I may be wrong, but I think some sort of XI played down the Bught once.

I was doing a bit of research earlier and in the late 90s we played two Lewis/Harris Select teams, which took place over two days with the first being played at Fivepenny on Lewis, the home of Ness FC. We won that game 4-0, before defeating another Lewis/Harris Select team 7-1 the following day at Goat Hill Park in Stornoway, home of Stornoway United. We played in Italy a couple of summers as well. Don't know what the venue was like, but one was against a Romanian team as I recall and another was bizarrely against the Qatar U20 side!

You may remember other threads such as "How many nationalities have played for ICT" and "How many nationalities have played at the Caley Stadium", well here's another in a similar vein. How many stadiums/grounds have ICT played at? Are there any in the league system we haven't visited through the years? How many have we been to that no longer exist? And of course, where's the strangest place we've played? We could include friendlies and reserve matches in order to get the number up. On top of this, are there any prominent stadiums we haven't visited in any capacity? I think I'm right in saying that we've never played at Meadowbank Stadium in any capacity, unless we played Hibs Reserves there (I think they used that at one time as opposed to Almondvale). It might be nice to include our own experiences as well. For me, seeing ICT play Charlton at The Valley in East London was a bit surreal and I doubt I'll ever forget our encaptivating 10-0 win over Muir of Ord Rovers on a pitch next to a bowling green, with Terry Butcher watching from over the fence while stood on a wee grassy verge. So how many grounds have ICT played at and where have we visited and have not visited over the years?

I see Dean McDonald has signed for Whitehawk, after "playing" for four different teams in 2013. God he was rubbish!

Where did I say it was "all John's fault"? Nor did I call for Hughes's head after the final. Where did I say it was? Blue eyed boy?! Actually I think Hartley as a man is a weirdo, but going by his record and Hughes's record, I, like the vast majority, wanted him appointed over Hughes. Eh? To be quite honest, I had to read your post through more than once to understand what you meant. To say I called for Hughes's head, despite the post you quoted saying I wanted Hughes to be given time, suggests to me that you actually didn't read my post at all and/or have me confused with some other posters.

Did Aberdeen not take forever to score one season? This would've been about 2000ish when they were rooted to the bottom for a long while. Strange as they had Eoin Jess at that time as well, but they couldn't buy a goal!

I was one of the 53. Hughes is very much trying to drum this passing philosophy onto the players and there's nothing wrong with that, but we seem to be passing it for the sake of it now. Even at 2-0 down we were passing around the defence and back to the keeper, when we really need to get the ball forward and we still seem to run out of ideas in the final third and attempt to pass the ball into the net. Ryan Christie was very very impressive as others have said. I think he'll be our Andrew Shinnie talisman-in-the-hole player very soon indeed.

I wonder if Hughes's entire style is what the problem is. Under Terry Butcher, if we won but played badly, Butcher would give them a rollicking. I know that for a fact. Butcher ruled the players with an iron fist. The impression I get from Hughes is he's a bit more pally with them. I wonder if say last night, where we played alright on the whole but got beat, Hughes's team talk is somewhere along the lines of "Nevermind lads. You played alright." A pally manager can work, but not always and it's often circumstantial. I wonder if Hughes's approach has led to the players thinking "Oh well, we don't need to win anymore, just give it a good go." That's where problems start, as Aberdeen found out post-Ferguson. Hughes's teams have never been big goalscorers, not at this level anyway. I was speaking to someone who's interviewed Hughes quite a few times and he said to me that Hughes's Falkirk "was like watching a Barcelona that never scored goals." I think the true could soon be said for us. There's nothing wrong with keeping the ball, but there's a time to go a bit more direct - not necessarily long balls, but forward passes and getting the ball into the box. We all want to see passing football, but not for the sake of it, allowing the opposition to regain their positions and at times taking our own zip out of attacks. Under Butcher the players had a real drive a lot of the time to get forward and score goals. I don't seem to see that so much now. How good is Hughes's record compared to others? Is his record any better than the likes of Ian MacCall's, Ivan Golac's or Alex Smith's? Not particularly. In hindsight, should we have gone for Paul Hartley? Yes. If the board could go back in time, would they appoint Hartley instead? I wouldn't be surprised. Hughes is a man who applied for the Hamilton Accies job when Billy Reid left and failed to get it. Should Hughes be sacked? Of course not, certainly not for now anyway. While I think he may well benefit from the good signings of Butcher and Marsella, he needs to at least get some time to show what he can do and show us that he can get it right. If we really are looking poor, say a third of the way through next season, then that will be the time to make a decision and if he's doing so poorly that he needs punted, then that's what we should do. For now, he should be given time and he will no doubt get it. Despite this though, going from what we're seeing on the pitch and looking at his previous record, fans have the right to be concerned and be free to air their views without being labeled as "idiots" and other such terms. I thought the aim for this club was top six, cup finals and Europe. Now "happy clappers" are telling us that we all should just be happy with staying up. The worried ones are the ones who want the club to kick on. The ones who are easily pleased with just staying up, if anything, are the real negative ones. Only the manager and the immediate staff have changed - not the players who got us to second, yet people are now happy with just staying up and attack those who want to push on to bigger things. That's the type of attitude that'll get us nowhere.

4-4-2 doesn't seem to work and 4-2-3-1 seems to be defensively ok on the whole leaves us weak up top. For that reason, I'd go for 4-3-3 formation, with 3 up top, but also keeping the 3 in midfield to try and keep hold of that area. Raven and Shinnie bombing up and down providing the width. Brill Raven Warren Meekings Shinnie Tansey Draper Christie Doran Foran Mckay Subs - Esson, Devine, Tremarco, Ross, Watkins, Vincent, Williams

I'm not convinced we do have players that are good at shooting from range. Who's really got a good long shot on them? Tansey does, Shinnie sometimes does and maybe Meekings. That's about it really. Ben Greenhalgh has a decent shot, but seems to have disappeared. Doran shoots from range almost every week and every week the ball is ballooned towards the corner flag. It was no surprise when the same happened on Sunday.