absent friend

Unlike Smee I did not rate Celtic last night and felt we could do a good job on them this weekend. I felt the opposition was not putting them under much pressure and they were still offloading the ball. I know, eat your words and all that come the weekend - till then live in hope(dreamland!)

I think his ballocking from Hastings will make sure he will think twice before he repeats this type of tackle anywhere near the box!

FYIB - Pints taken! However I was perhaps raising the issue that all the lower league teams seem to be able to raise their games and not just us. Therefore, playing against them is no longer a 'gimmie' but depends on their game on that day. It must be doing managers heads in to have to deal with this inconsistency - us home and away, Killie 1st and 2nd half's on Saturday. Did Aberdeen not also have this problem of lacking confidence playing in front of their own support and played better away from home?

The dying out of the Gaelic language and the Clearances are related in that they owe this to the English! The language and politics respectively. As we have also given up our inherited natural treasures with no resistance, it is plain to see that we are not a nation, in comparison to the Welsh, but a fragmented country more interested in line dancing than bloodline. We stand up and sing 'Flower of Scotland' 'to be a nation again' No Chance! Unless it is the English nation( North Britain) Why don't we accept that Gaelic is only an annoyance as it offers that which we don't have, an Identity through speech and behavior, carrying forward their traditions that still play a big part in their lives and while we watch the 'jungle' and 'corrie' they will delight in music and song! Envy is an awful thing! D when the police come to take to statement as to why you ran up the 'erse' of the car in front, just be careful he is not from Harris or you are in big trouble!

Lazy weekend so watched the game thru twice, Sat night and Sun night - sad, eh! Keeper - it must be difficult to see him NOT playing for ICT in the future! Mature, very committed and leaves no one around him in any doubt as to his intentions or feelings. Defense - excellent, Proctor surprised me, more mature than I expected. Hastings was superb, runs down the left were a problem for Killie. He also was so committed I thought that he was going to attack his own player for giving away the penalty! I am a Grantie/Tokley fan so enough said, they were great. Midfield - played well with Black adding the holding/ passing moves very well and also had time to upset the Killie players, fans and the ref! Lone striker - Wood, whilst running around a lot, has a problem with touch. The ball hits him, bounces off him and the player covering him has time to defend the situation or indeed to gather the ball and clear it. Rossco received a cross ball from I think it was Black, one side of the park to another, high lob, kills it looks up and passes it up the line, it is then passed to Wood along the ground(ish) bounces away from him and Killie are on the attack! How can a BIG defender have ball skills that the forward needs but does not have? Also not impressed with Barrowmans input, as a sub, he should be making a bid to be first choice for the next game but that did not show. AS a game it did have the ''two halves'' - first half we had 13 players on the park, spare man waiting for a pass at all times, 2nd half they looked to have an extra man. This made for the exciting game the posters on here have been looking for, with loads of commitment!

I refer to "it" as the existence of the problems you have cited in your original post. You have your head in the sand regarding the existence of problems at the club. Hope that helps As can be seen from the heading, it is the use of 'i know' by posters that then give greater credence to their posting, that I am referring to and I do not in any way pass judgment on the content of the posting in which they were used!! I would also bring to your attention that the 'i know' extracts I used were from varied subjects and I would suppose that most people on here would have differing views dependent on the subject matter! As can be seen from my reply to CaleyD below, I concur with his point that there are many things wrong at the club. Sorry' I still don't understand 'it' or 'sand'!! I could not agree more!! That does not take away from my point raised!

It doesn't matter a jot to me if you believe it or not - If you don't like it, then by all means continue to bury your head in the sand. I have a problem with the highlighted areas! I don't understand when you refer to 'IT' and it would also appear than my head is in the sand, regarding what exactly?

It would appear from the press that Livi are again in financial stook! It is stated that they only have a few days to meet their creditors deadline and one of the creditors is the Revenue and, I understand, they don't take prisoners! Maybe this is when we should be grateful for the financial help and direction we have received over the years and dwell on this positive.

Perhaps some of you will recognise the following generalised statements from this boards offerings, the content being very common on here ? ''that i know?? ''unrest in the dressing room?? ''lost the players?? ?? majority want Brewster out?? ??have not discussed contract terms with.....?? ''The fact is he is now strangeling the club, holding us back if you like??. etc, etc. If it is said often enough, not only will others believe it, the poster will also believe it too! I do accept that Inverness is a small place and players (and it would appear, the Board)are on friendly terms, in some cases, with posters but I do wonder can this always be the case for the .. 'i know' .. postings or is this being used to try and substantiate a point which would otherwise carry little weight! I realise that in Scotty's case he is 'in the know' possible at both player and board level but is gagged, to a certain extent, as it may be 'privileged' info.

This, I would agree, getting back to the original point, is not the way to man-manage and instill confidence IMO. However, the game the boy is in, is full of that behavior and he will have to get thicker skinned if he is to go to, say, Aberdeen - I use the case of Sone Aluka on Saturday who was publically 'done' by his manager, as an example. If he goes to Man Utd, he better get practice in ducking, there's a teapot on it's way. So, according to this board, Brew may be a bad tactician, selector of signings, selector of teams, retainer of excellent players, reader of games, substituter of players, public speaker(has he anything going for him?) BUT he is not on his own, as a football manager, when it comes to shouting at players, young or old! Did I not read on here that even the 'perfect' SPL manager, according to this board, Yogi, was shouting at his players last week??

Mother - Can we call her that as it would appear that she only gave birth to the wee thing and had no feelings at all! Who had a history of mistreating the bairn?. Who, it would appear, condoned the boyfriends actions? Who hid the bruising etc from authority? Boyfriend and mate - Words can't describe feelings towards them BUT I can only hope that the 'good' baddies will knock them senseless once they are jailed, on an hourly basis and then smear 'chocolate' on the bruises. Friends, Neighbours and Family - One had the child officially in her care and must have been alerted to the possibility of a problem. They were in the forefront of that child's life and none can be absolved from guilt even if were only averting their eyes or ears, so that they were not involved. My reason for writing this is that, if you decide that the fault is at Downing Street, you are diluting the blame and missing the guilty parties, as show above, to try and make a political point. This wee thing is worthy of more than that!

Sorry being a bit vague, I was making the point that I do not see lending being lax, in fact at this time it is maybe too tight, my point being that the laxness was related to the buying in of the money, off the money market, with eyes etc being shut, as they saw more profit on the way! Enjoyed your input!

If it was so easy to work out the nature of the problem why in the first instance did the internal compliance officers not pick it up at an early stage? With the number of checks in place to establish that a commercial/ mortgage proposal satisfys the lending criteria of the bank concerned, before money is released - why was the money source not underwritten in this same manner? Hector Sants, poacher turned gamekeeper, with a history of millions of pounds of regulatory fines being imposed on CSFB, whilst he was the vice chairman, is not quite what I was thinking of as a BYB regulator! His approach to the hedge fund industry was to 'suggest' a less light touch to their regulatory requirements as the industry had the potential for wrong doing! He also 'suggested' they supply more info to allow ''more effective supervision''.

My second well presented, reasoned point merely followed on from the first. If you say the following: You are suggesting that anyone who calls for the manager to leave are less of a fan than you are. Therefore, your "opinion" is, in its entirity, pish. I must, therefore, applaud your reasoning!

Blame Gordon Brown. The previous system worked not too badly - specialist regulators covering each part of the industry. For the two years before FSA and most of the time after, it's been a shambles. There was no need to re-organise. A year and a half ago Bob Diamond (Barclays) came out and said there's a liquidity crisis coming. Typical New Labour response - play the man not the ball - oh you should manage your business better - next thing Northern Rock, B&B, HBOS are bust from liquidity mismatch - the one thing the Bank of England always regulated very tightly, but lost the ability to do so when Gordon gave the job of regulating banks to FSA. The real problem however, was the bank's thrust to make as much profit as quickly as possible and they lost their banking 'prudence' by so doing. They should not have required any regulator to see what the future held for them, but finance/profit does blind even the most prudent of bankers, it would appear. I would submit that blaming the change of regulator, or the government for so doing, is shifting the blame from the guilty parties. However, I do feel that even the Bank of England would have some difficulty in recruiting the 'bright young boys' on the enormous salaries, to police this!

I have never ever stated that I want Brewster in charge. Your second, well presented, reasoned point, offers the fact that perhaps you don't quite accept my view - I hope I picked that up correctly - but my views are echoed, at length, by the Aberdeen manager in an extended article in the Evening Express this week and in it he also included managers in the EPL as well as the SPL. But, hey ho, he and I are allowed to have 'pish' opinions, eh! And when we lost they were not even on the park so they are blameless!!

If he'd been a suicide bomber all wrapped up in gelegnite, and one of those 15 bullets had hit the right point there the only decorating would be bits of human tissue, bricks and mortar scattered around London OK Alex - posthumously!

If you play golf, you can be consistent and have a measured consistency, however, in football you can only be as consistent as the opposition allows. If the opposition decides to be negative, it is difficult to be open and flowing in your game and thereby the charge of inconsistency can be levied. The fear factor among the managers, with a call for their heads from a section of almost all the so called 'fans', makes for dour struggles I'm afraid. I suppose Yogi was the exception in his managerial manner but I feel that even he has now forsaken his cavalier attitude in favor of results, as evidenced last night. Entertainment = nil points V Poor entertainment = 1 point.... there is no contest if they wish to retain their job in this league. Just don't lose! If we are to be consistent we have to assume that other teams will allow us to be winners all the time or allow us to play bright football all the time or shut their eyes and not listen to their coaches and allow our good players to play them off the park each week. Some hope! Why did our best player last Saturday have to be subbed last night? Me thinks Yogi watched last Saturdays match before coming up North and took remedial action. Or maybe our player was inconsistent! We are inconsistent amongst inconsistent teams, at this time.

If he had been a bomber, which was their belief at the time, and they had carried out this same action, they would have been decorated for approaching this man with no regard for their own lives and saving others on that tube. As someone has already said - someone in the chain of command must take the blame for an officer making a large mistake and giving the incorrect order!

To reply to the thread heading - the problem we have is that the cats are NOT fat enough!! We have the highest qualified people in government, on all sides, that we have ever had but they are paid the same amount as a GP and half the amount of a top consultant. Now for that money we, the taxpayers, expect top decisions, with no mistakes, on an ongoing basis, in areas that are new to the respective MPs. The current banking situation has been compounded, in this country, because we, the taxpayer, are not prepared to pay top dollar to the brains to keep our country financially policed. The FSA, by their own admission, do not have the brain power to stop 'The City' from making capital as they cannot afford to employ the top people to compliance check them. The prime mover in the banking fiasco was paid $1.5 BILLION bonus last year by his hedge fund employers. It is like asking the Rothes keeper to pass judgment on the Chelsea training methods. We require in this country really well paid civil servants, with the politicians being the figure head only of the departments, and the said civil servants taking the responsibility for any failings/overstaffing/overspending. Civil servants = job for life! Not in my system, pay them the right money but they are only as secure as their department allows them to be, a balls up and they are out, not the politician that has had 'responsibility' of that department for a short time as is currently the case.

[i expect Brewster to pick his best 11 every week and put it on the park. On paper/training ground and on park can be two different teams! I expect those 11 players to be motivated by the manager as that is part of his job. Once on park motivation must be carried by players or captain. I expect those 11 professional players to act in a professional manner, perform consistently, and get the job done. Funny you say that - could not agree more! I do NOT expect us to win every game but I do expect us to put in an effort in each game. Agreed I do NOT expect everyone to like Brewster, that never happens with managers in almost any field. Another agreed I do NOT expect us to lie down and be rodgered the way we were against Rangers. That is not acceptable. Killie, umpteen places above us, were rodgered the following week, maybe just highlights the ability gap between the halves and halve nots.

Is this year not unusual with 8/9 teams all beating each other on the day? I don't think I can remember a year, with 12 games played and the bottom of the league being so closely bunched, right up to fourth place. If you were in 5th place, 9 points ahead of the team you are facing, you have a right to expect a win - you have proved you are at least 25% better than they were - but now only a small margin separates the 8/9 teams and the result is therefore less predictable but the expectation is still there! Throw into the pot the normal David/Goliath results that crop up over a season and you can see the difference this year. Maybe this makes the stats more difficult, this year.

We now appear to have the fans from nine teams in the SPL calling for the head of their manager. JJ lost four goals to Rangers so he is crap, CB lost five last week so he is also crap BUT CB then beat Hibs this week so MP is crap and so it goes on! Lets agree that we can change all the managers round about, with no fee and therefore keep the fans happy - at least until they realise that this league has a large number of similar teams who can all take points off each other despite/because of, their manager! It is easy to lose faith in your team/manager with relegation being a possibility but it would appear, the teams are all in the same position and it has the potential for a superb finish to the league with goals not points being, maybe, very important! This year being sixth or last may be dictated by a couple of results over the year. Maybe it is time to get the scarf out and add your support. Exciting or what!!

I accept Scotty's 'lack of effort' above BUT the rest being surprised at the result is a load of nonsense. Look at the prediction league offerings, by our own knowledgeable fans, very few predicted a draw never mind a win and the winning score was even predicted. Be fair, we were all expecting to be done over but hoping for a wee result, I predicted a draw with my heart, not my head!!