lightwelter

I'm sure it's a decision made between the manager and the board, but I'm sure KC will have a big input in terms of the lengths of the contracts as he came out recently and spoke about their intentions to sign players more long term.

Real shame if Hughes was to leave, but the board have made it clear that they have backed him financially more so than any other manager. It's been clear for months now that the manager and the board have a strained relationship, which isn't something we're used to. At the end of the day we have lost some very good players, and replacing them with players of a similar level of quality would be out of our price range. We have to bring in relatively unproven players and train them up, we've been hugely successful at doing that throughout our history. The problem with the board is that they let players go for free or for a small price. If all of the players we have lost over the last three years had been on longer contracts and we'd sold them for a fee, we'd be in a much healthier financial position by now. Hopefully this gets sorted in the next couple of days and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Hughes stays and is allowed to sign some key players. It may be too late, and the bridges might already have been burned.

Gutted that Storey has opted against signing for us, even more gutted that he has signed for Aberdeen. If we sign Billy McKay would that make up for losing Storey, but that's a big if.

I won't be buying another Caley top until they remove "Subway" as the sponsor. Completely ruins a good top IMO.

I wasn't at the game because I live down south, but irrespective of the performance, it's one of the best results of the season. Hughes may have been too stubborn at times with continuing with possession based football when we don't have the attack minded players to play through the middle and open up defences, but I'd rather see that than see us struggling to keep possession. What I like about Hughes is that he knows what he wants, and hopefully he'll bring in the players to fill the gaps we've had this season. Fans saying they won't renew their season tickets are **** fans, talk about disloyal. What ever happened to supporting your club through thick-and-thin? It's no wonder players leave us when fans are considering not renewing their season ticket because of one fairly mediocre season (when realistically, this season we have performed at the level that a club of our size should, if not better). Two quarter finals, a seventh placed finish, and a positive goal difference, we'd be a laughing stock if we were to sack Hughes.

I remember Bingham, Paul Ritchie and Bobby Mann all leaving and fearing the worst for our first season in the top-flight, especially considering we were playing home games at Pittodrie! Looking back, it was quite an achievement to stay in the SPL that year. Good ol' Juanjo was a bag of tricks.

Brilliant result, one of the best this season. Dundee are no mugs and have a higher budget than us, as well as some really good players. People calling for Hughes' head need to wake up. You may not agree with some of his decisions and I'm disappointed that Raven is leaving too, but the man has given us the most successful spell in our history and this season has actually been pretty decent considering the mass exodus of all our best players and the massive injury list. There's been 8 replies to this topic. If we had lost this game, there would no doubt have been page after page of people complaining and calling for Hughes to leave. Nonsense.

Would be a shame to see him go, but where exactly do we play him? We can't break up the the Draper and Tansey partnership, and you wouldn't put him with them in a 3 man midfield because they're all defensively minded. I wouldn't mind seeing in him rotated in the first team, he's a solid CM and is brilliant in the air as well as being a great motivator, but can we afford to keep a player on high wages in a squad rotation system? Probably not. As stated above, we might be better off spending are money on attacking players.

How entertaining our football is appears to have little bearing on our attendances. We played some wonderful stuff last year, the most attractive and entertaining style we've ever had, and yet our attendances this year haven't improved and may have dropped.

Having been at home and away games, I think that the terrible atmosphere at home games has a major impact on the players. It's a bit of a vicious cycle, the tempo of the games is slow and there's little attacking intent at the moment, and so there's not much for the crowd to get excited about. Saying that, it's embarrassing the that the tiny away support on Friday actually made more noise than the home support, even when the game was 0-0. You hear players talking about the crowd as being a "12th man" a giving them energy and motivation, our atmosphere must do the exact opposite. Our away support has a reputation of being quite noisy, and traditionally we are a better team on the road in the SPL, which is probably no coincidence!

True that we have a good track record for keeping our players injury free in the past, and this is likely not just down to luck, but also to proper management of the training load, recovery strategies etc. However, I think there's plenty of indication this season that there has been physical conditioning issues. Losing goals late in games and the number of injuries we've sustained would support that notion. I definitely think playing in Europe killed us in many ways, as it has done to other teams in our league in the past. It doesn't allow you to have a pre-season where the focus is on gradually increasing the conditioning of the players, and if players aren't conditioned, they are susceptible to injuries. A good point made above that having the proper support staff in this area can pay for itself, and allow you to work with a smaller squad whilst ensuring players are in peak condition. You only need to look at Leicester City as an example.

Been saying this all along! The club could do with some support in the sport science department, which is non-existent at the moment. Managing training load, optimising recovery, and building "robust" players through strength and conditioning can have huge potential not only for first team players but also in bringing through young players, who often struggle and break down when exposed to the demands of full-time football. The number of injuries was a pivotal factor in not fulfilling our potential this season, and I think a lot of that was down to mismanagement of the players' training, particularly during the early phase of the season before the Astra games. I'm intrigued as to how our squad remained so injury free in seasons gone by, and whether this was down to good planning and training strategy, or just good luck! County employed a sport scientist last season and I've noticed there players wearing GPS units during games to quantify match demands, with some of the players commenting on how it had helped them improve this season. I'd like to see us do something similar, although it wouldn't come cheap!

1-0, Carl Tremarco :D

I would hope JH isn't thinking of leaving after just signing a new contract. Dundee United will not be in a healthy financial position so I'm not sure they can afford to sack Mixu, never mind bring in a manager who is already contracted. I also think Mixu has been a bit unfortunate and he should be given a chance in the championship. Press and Journal saying that Doran is about to sign a new contract, which would be brilliant news for the club. He's such talented player and has been sorely missed this season, his creativity and ability to beat players is exactly what we've been missing. It's crazy that he's only 24, he's been around for years now! I'm slowly starting to feel quite hopeful for next season and I hope the upcoming signings fuel my optimism!

http://ictfc.com/news/team-news/1745-board-update-for-fans Good to see the board realising a statement on incoming players, looking forward to hearing the players we have signed on pre-contracts. This is what the fans have been looking for rather than being kept in the dark. Brilliant news on Polworth, with him, Tansey and Draper all signed up for next season this gives us a great foundation to build on and if we invest in some good attacking players, we can look forward to having a better playing squad than this season and hopefully a more successful one.

Good performance following the penalty and red card. We seem to be good at taking advantage when the opposition are down to 10 men (last years Scottish cup semi springs to mind). We defended fairly well for most of the game. Devine is a bit of a bombscare at times, he seems like he has the right tools to be a good centre back but positionally he is all over the place at times and he's been error prone this season. Tremarco is becoming one of our most consistent performers and JH made the right call in giving him a chance to prove his worth this season. Still baffled as to why Storey isn't play through the middle. I know he started upfront today but he was often drifting out to the wings and is generally not as effective there. He's good at finding gaps between defenders and he's dangerous when playing on the shoulder of the last defender. I heard the commentator say his contract is up at Swindon at the end of the season so hopefully we'll make him an offer, but I'd imagine we would have done so by now if that was our plans.

3-1. That was an absolutely outstanding goal, must have been 20-odd passes in the build up. JH has been getting pelters recently and rightly so in most cases but that goal epitomises what how he wants us to play.

Better team but no quality up top. Same old story.

The match is almost as dull as the atmosphere. I'd say we're the better team though.

I don't think it's a pre-planned move, considering Raven himself was pleading for a contract earlier in the season. It will be JH's fault if one of our rivals snaps him up and the fans will be well aware of that. To me, his comments don't make much sense. If we don't give Raven a new deal, and we only look to sign attacking players for next season, that leaves absolutely no cover at the back. We would literally have 5 defenders. Meekings isn't a natural right back and his partnership with Warren was pivotal to our success last year, so what's the rationale in breaking up that partnership. Like others, I always try to be supportive of Yogi as if it wasn't for him we wouldn't have had such success last season, but his decision making and comments to the media over the last season has made that more and more difficult. It's probably not only the fans that will be fuming at this decision, but the players too. He better hope he has a positive start to next season, or the fans will be calling for his head in no time.

Jeezo, absolute travesty if we let Raven go for free. I'd like to hear JH's rationale on this one considering Raven's the best right back at the club.

Absolutely no chance of Yogi going to Celtic. Very unlikely that Stubbs will get a looking either with Hibs "Hibsing it" at the moment. JH will be staying put for the foreseeable future I would imagine.

I also heard that, very interesting if true. If someone has loads of spare time they should work out the average attendances across Europe and normalise it to population.

A lot of if and's and but's this season unfortunately. If a game lasted 85 minutes instead of 90 we wouldn't be in the bottom 6, but it doesn't, and we are. In some ways we've been a victim of our own success last season. I thought at the start of the season that top 6 would be a great achievement considering the number of players we lost in the summer. Taking into account that all our best players moved on in the summer and we lost a significant number of players to injuries this season, we're not actually doing OK. Overall, John Hughes is still doing a very good job in my books, but next season will tell us a lot more in terms of his ability to recruit and keep instilling his style of play.

Solid result, Dundee United have been on the ascendency recently so an away win is a good achievement. Could have been more judging by the commentary. Gutted we won't be in the top 6, but let's focus on winning our own mini league and staying clear of the play-off place.