davie

Tactically, Hughes nailed this. Putting Tremarco in (who I thought had his best game in an ICT shirt) and putting Shinnie further forward was causing Celtic no end of problems. After about 10 mins, we had one break and ended up with a four on three because of the pace that Watkins, Williams and Shinnie could pass and go at. Sure we had to defend, but again did that well and it's something you would expect to do at Celtic. The goal was avoidable, and apart from that I felt comfortable that we would get out with a draw yesterday. Not to be, but a massively impressive performance.

It may be your expectation that ICTFC "fluctuates between the bottom six and championship" but it's not the club's or I would suspect, the vast majority of its supporters.

Changed it a few times roughie. 4-4-1 after the sending off, never looked ike conceding. As well as Collum wrecking the game, the wind didn't do anyone any favours either. Three points that we might end up looking back at as crucial.

Agree with Caley D here. It's not just a cost thing, and although our crowds have fallen this year, as a proportion of the population attending they aren't too bad. Inverness's population at the last count was 72 000, and our average crowd 3 500 representing 4.86% against a Scottish average of 3.86% Reducing the average attendance to 3 000 still draws 4.16%. So we are actually holding up not too badly against the national picture and, given that our prices have actually fallen in real terms as CD says, the problem for us must lie elsewhere. We can't really complain about the quality of the product at TCS , given where we are in the League on our budget (although it's a budget we really need to increase) So what actually is the problem? I honestly think that people stay away because there is a central belt media agenda that has a vested interest in promoting negativity in our game in order to continue to sell newspapers to Billy of Armadale and Partick of Springburn. According to them anything and everything from stadia to stewarding is downright awful.But that's all it does, sell papers - it has no interest in the welfare of the game.Too few teams? The top League can't support more realistically because the population base isn't there in Scotland to supply fans and in any case, those new clubs would rapidly become the same old same old. Match day experience? according to the stats, not that many people (20% or so) are that excercised about further improvements to grounds. They just want better football. Other stuff to watch? Let's move out of the way of the rugby etc. Weather? well, here's my point. Maybe it is time to move to summer football. Interestingly the last Scottish Football survey defined the social demographic of people attending the game and it's not the working class pie & a pint after working saturday morning then go to the game that it used to be. We don't all head off on trades fortnights holidays any more so what's the deal? I'd rather watch football in July with an average temperature of 15 degrees than January with 4. You'll still get rain but it won't be solid! It might even increase our perception of difference from the EPL, and increase the standard of football as well as making last minute postponements a thing of the past. Look at scandinavia if you want a bright, vibrant domestic football scene played in decent weather. Look at Eastern Europe iif you want to see how to avoid playing in winter but still make a fist of playing in europe. It can be done, it would bring people back to the game. It just needs a bit of radical thought that might have the added, brilliant benefit of sinking the central belt media certainties once and for all.

Keep going with this mate, seems like a great idea. If I can help in any way, just PM me.

I think the posts above mask a potentially serious issue regarding the home support that becomes more urgent as time passes. There are (honest!) people around who think about this issue for periods of time large enough to be harmful to them. We come up with idea after idea but it doesn't seem to get organised or get through. The team delivers results - you simply can't argue against them being top of the League. They have arguably delivered on style as well. The concerns that were had in the days of high-octane Butcher football, when we pressed all over the field and sometimes ran out of steam and then didn't have a plan B have been addressed by possession based football. It's certainly different.What you can't argue with is that it's delivering by the only criteria that a football club works to and that the fans demand - results. We are not a club of a size who can afford to prioritise anything over results, because that's where our income is generated from SPFL and television. We don't have an investor of the magnitude of a Roy MacGregor and I'd venture to suggest that the support might not want one - and not just because County are currently illustrating the limitations of that kind of strategy. We'll never get the income required to run the team from gate receipts alone unless and until the size of the home gate reflects our League position. That means getting more people to home games and that's never going to happen when people can't get behind the club and team for whatever reason. If I have a fear about this (and it's a serious one), it's that we will lose the majority of what could well be our most successful team because it feels like they are playing in front of "two men and their dog". Let's face it, the majority of our first team are not here for the money and they are increasingly not getting much else out of it. What's to be done? The club always has and always will continue to work with fans, cjt etc. to improve things on and off the pitch. CTO has a role to play in that as well. If you have concerns, let the club or cjt know. If you have energies, please expend them for the good of the club. For instance, Rodger the handyman could really do with a hand to paint the perimeter railings and gates at the ground but doesn't have the manpower or the budget to do it. If you can help, pm me and we'll get it done. If you have a commitment to ICTFC, there are initiatives currently being discussed for upcoming home games that are designed to energise the support but they will only do that if you support, attend and feed back. If you have friends, persuade them to come to at least one game. We've recently seen how effective grass roots movements can be and if 500 existing fans can persuade one of their mates to come along for County, Hamilton, you will be much more effective than any committee. Please support as much as you can.

Fraid that Warren was offside, as were a couple of others. Mind you, the guy who scored for rangers shouldn't have been on the park - his two footed lunge on Williams was a red card all day long. Black's first half studs-up one in the first half was a potential leg breaker so Mr. Allan got several key decisions wrong. It doesn't change the result though. We didn't press enough against a thoroughly average long ball side who, if we had played to potential we would have played off the park. As for their fans, they really are poor. I for one don't want to see them anywhere near the premiership.

Is there anyone out there who would be prepared to give us a hand with a bucket collection at the stadium before the match against St. Johnstone? We are raising funds to supply Inverness Street & Youth League with a portable defibrillator, an important first aid tool that they don't have at present. Although rare, there have been a couple of instances in Scotland recently where the availability of a defibrillator might have saved a young life. If you can help, please pm me or just meet us at the sports bar an hour before kick off and we'll give you a bucket to rattle. There's absolutely no reward other than being able to prise as much out of your fellow fans as you can! Cheers my dears.

It's not strictly off topic, but do you really think that expanding the League to include sides of lesser quality is going to improve things? How do you get rid of the "same old same old"? You can't just invent new clubs to satisfy a hankering for something marginally "new", nor can you deny that every game is different regardless of the opposition. Do you think that rescheduling to a 3pm saturday and removing the Leagues only real source of income would help? If it happened, we would be on a fast track downwards as would most of the SPFL. Margins are that tight. What needs to happen is for a recognition that, actually, the standard of football isn't that bad (and even if it is, we can make it better) and is certainly up there if you look at Leagues of a comparable size in comparable countries - not the EPL or La Liga. At ICTFC we are enjoying the (potentially) best spell in our history and it's liable to get better. What's not there is physical infrastructure to promote community involvement - which is true of most clubs due to lack of funds and public investment - and a lack of people proclaiming reasons why people should come to games. If we got just 500 more fans out of the pub, off their sofas or away from their x-boxes to every home game the difference to the club would be immeasureable in economic and atmosphere terms. Rather than girning that the game's sh*te, that's where our energies ought to be focussed. Remember that our players are professional athletes who feed off positive feedback. It's why they play the game. Sure, the money is attractive but I for one am afraid that this current team and its potential will be lost to Inverness because of apathy, and we'll end up only wondering how good 2014 could have been. They'll move on to places where they feel they will be better supported because it improves their motivation to perform rather than stay in a place that doesn't reward being (just suppose) top of the League without losing a goal. But as I said, it takes people to shout this out, not just a few derided often as "happy clappers" Lose them, and apathy really has won - but probably only 1-0!

ICT's biggest coups are yet to come, but they will come this season. Starting soon. Believe

There always has been one, in what was the old section G, then Section E etc. To my mind though, at least the whole North Stand ought to be a singing section. I think what's happening over the Bridge is a recognition from RC that they have become alienated from a great swathe of their support and they have to do this kind of thing to get it back. To be fair, that hasn't happened here so we don't have the same need. If we could get more fans over the door to make a bigger noise, that would be our only real need addressed.

Strange that Terry has been back in town this week.......................

I'm not "jumping" on anybody, just disagreeing with the reasoning. I didn't take issue with it being a "reserve" side, I disagreed with it being "severely weakened"

Dougal, As your wee arab buddie, I'll ask you to do the right thing - he got me as well. I could suggest that you protect your identity with say, a balaclava if you are concerned at being identified and seperated from your on-line alter ego. Yours aye, Davie

I don't like to disagree dad, but I'm not having this. Mulgrew, Commons and Griffiths are all established Scotland players. Ambrose was at the world cup, Zaluskas, Pukki, Bitton and Johansen have all played for their countries. Even one of the subs (MacGregor) has just got a call up so this was no "severely weakened" team. Celtic have a massive squad who I presume train together day in day out in various permutations. In the second half, we passed them off the park. Not my point of view but that of a significant portion of the media - usually grudging in their praise who are recognising that the style of play, regardless of the manager, is attractive and beginning to show signs of being successful. If you think that this is as good as it gets because that's where we are settled at and others will progress as far can I suggest that this team are still learning, we have Foran to return if required and we will improve. Perhaps you recognise this point in your final sentence, but they seem opposing points of view. You are correct in saying that Brill was excellent, but had we converted chances from Tansey, Ross and Christie (all of which were narrowly missed) and got a stonewall penalty in the first half, your score analysis would have been turned on it's head. There was criticism of the performance against Dundee, but I'm not sure that you can call it significant. We drew against a team that set out to defend for 80 odd minutes and did so very well. We didn't lose the game and had the lions share of pressure. The only thing lacking in the performance was a goal. Is that worthy of "significant" criticism? On the subject of eating humble pie, does that really need to be done? We are all ICT fans here. Sure Hughes was "given time" by some last year and this years judgement point seems to be slipping from October to Christmas to the end of the season, which is where it should have been all along. Even if we lose to Kilmarnock on Saturday, my personal viewpoint won't change. It certainly won't change any more than it did about Butcher's team that was dismantled by St. Johnstone at a similar time of last season, although that display showed how tactically limited we were at the time and was more worthy of concern than any result this season. I'm glad you enjoyed the game, so did I. However, I wish that more than 5600 or so had enjoyed it. We (the regulars, the committed fans etc.) need to be shouting this from the rafters to get more bodies into the stadium to get behind the team, bolster the finances and allow us to kick on. One final point, remember the last time we played a "weakened" Celtic team - we got cuffed because we didn't have the belief that we could beat them. Sure do now.

This sounds like one of our best performances

It's this ^^^. Why is there a need to put "does he even go to games?" after a perfectly justified "don't rise to him". If we all took a step back and cut out the jibes there would be no negatives or happy clappers. just ICT fans.

Johndo, if you like watching football it might well be entertaining. Dundee parked the bus here, and only came into the game when we got overanxious about it in the last 15 minutes or so. It's not as if we didn'y create chances - Warren, Shinnie and Draper could have scored. Both teams tried to play football, and if we had got Hartley as manager there's a fair bit to indicate here that the end result would look remarkably similar to the Hughes model. I'm not sure about being bored by a passing game (even if it doesn't always come off) but I'd sure as hell rather be bored by that than leathering the ball upfield into the corners and chasing it pell mell. 4 points out of six for the first two games? Happy with that. PS: Hamilton's result tonight puts into perspective how well we did against them on saturday - there's no mugs in this league.

I think Roughie et al took what you said in slightly the wrong way. Rangers refuse to speak to the BBC because of some very specific peices of journalism relating to their financial state, not because of any criticism of the way that they play their football. As far as I know, nothing like that has ever happened at this club .

Agree with the above. Indeed he's about to age considerably over the next wee while. Bring back Mikey Noble though, that Ian McCall was murder.

I don't "kotow" to anyone, and neither am I required to. Just stating my opinion.

You can only beat what's in front of you and we did that today - comprehensively. Wednesday will be just another game where I fully expect that we will do the same.

I couldn't disagree more with post #65 if I tried, but it's all about opinions I suppose. If you found that 1st half boring, I don't know where you want to watch your football, but I'd suggest it aint the SPFL. Anyways, the first half was hugely impressive and we had something around 75% of possession. Hamilton didn't know how to cope with us and couldn't have complained if we'd put 3 or 4 past them. I know, one of their Directors told me. Vincent was responsible for at least three or four break up tackles that resulted in us pouring forward with a purpose that was a joy to behold. Christie was quite brilliant in that first half and linked well with Billy. With a bit of luck he could have had a hat trick. The second half was never going to be easy to sustain the same level of threat and didn't chane until Doran and Watkins came on. Marley had their entire back 4 on toast from minute 1, and Doran very nearly won us a penalty. Overweight? think not. A great start t the season and on this display, I'd fully expect 6 points in the bag by thursday. Right, I'm off - my grandson's just woken up and I'm babysitting.

Dougal, Being described as "odd" by you is an accolade that I shall warmly accept. Even if you are wrong on two out of three points. Davie

Strange thread this. Is there really a need for a positive/ negative thread when none of us has really seen enough to make an informed judgement about the season (which has yet to start) I'd like to think that the OP is simply venting a bit of frustration. This isn't the OF, you are allowed to dissent from the "official" view in as many ways as you like. You can express any opinion you like and as far as I'm concerned do it without being labelled as anything other than an ICTFC fan. Labels like "happy clapper" or "negatives" are unneccessary, as is sniping at individuals by name because you don't agree with them. One thing I would take issue with is that I don't think that any other fans forum (under these circumstances) would have a considerable body of fans baying for the manager's head. Deila seems safe, nothwithstanding it's probably the UEFA league for Celtic. MacNamara seems safe, despite losing a cup final that he was widely expected to win. You can't legitimise an individual point of view by spreading it out to unconnected bodies of people. Even McCoist seems safeish, despite his early and pre season lack of success. Perhaps Hibs or Hearts might have been calling for blood by now, but that's about it. I look forward to this season with the same anticipation that I do every year and if there are judgements to be made they will be made in light of the facts which probably means Christmas time. I've got the same doubts, hopes, fears and aspirations under Hughes as I do every year and did under Butcher but I'll suspend negatives until they really are required. I think we'll finish 4th and I reckon that Killie will go down. But then again, I think that Abedeen might win this league this year so what do I know! Just bring it on.