DoofersDad

Glad to see you back to your encouraging best DD! You obviously didn't walk on that pitch on Saturday but it was glutinous and heavy. As I 've already said, it's a miracle Tommy and Mattie got it playable in the fiirst place. Brave? If we had attempted to pay the usual passing game beginning with Esson playing short balls out, it would have been suicidal. Although County are a side getting to know each other, they are fighting for their lives and will pull out results such as Saturdays. I would have preferred to see subs used earlier, but I can quite understand why an inexperienced boy whose game is reliant on pace wasn't put anywhere near it. The key point here is that the pitch was playable. In making that decision the referee is checking that the ball is able to roll on the surface. The pitch was soft and heavy but there was not lying water nor were there large patches of glutinous mud. Balls passed crisply and acurately would run true most of the time. And, yes, I am genuinely being encouraging because I think our players have the quality to be able to pass the ball on a pitch like that. From time to time they did play some decent passing football - indeed the goal came from a neat passing exchange. What was needed was a modification of tactics and not a massive change. I agree with you about the passing from the back. As the pitch cut up a bit, occasional balls would be likely to hold up, particularly if played a little too tentatively and that would be risky at the back. So at the back, there would have been a need to get the ball upfield quicker but once upfield we should have been looking to keep hold of it and pass it around a bit. Where the conditions were likely to have an effect was in playing the ball in the air when it would be affected by a strong wind and then, coming down from a height with more vertical momentum it would be more likely to hold up in the pitch. So, we revert to tactics more prone to being affected by the conditions than our normal game! And I don't buy the bit about not wanting to risk a young player whose game relies on pace. In his interview Yogi claimed to have changed his team when he saw what the pitch was like and put in runners instead. That would seem to me to be exactly the situation where you would want a young lad with pace (not to mention one who would undoubtedly have relished the opportunity to show everyone what he could do. And County are fighting for survival. So what! Does that mean they are trying harder than our team? I sincerely hope not. Are we not fighting for a European place or even the title itself? Incidentally, on the keeper front I always wonder why our keepers rarely throw the ball out. Craig Gordon was using that technigue very effectively for Celtic yesterday on a poor Hampden pitch. Yogi's interview is really pretty depressing. On the back of a great run of form he is signalling a change of tactics in the coming weeks with a view to keeping clean sheets and hoping to snatch a goal or two at the other end. When pitches are sticky it is the goal mouths that cut up the worst. Even the best of defenders will get caught out and you simply can't rely on clean sheets. Billy may be gone but we have a midfield stuffed with players who can score. It would be good to see a much more positive attitude demostrating faith in the ability of the players that we've got rather than making these lame excuses.

I don't think Beaton had the greatest of games but whilst he got 2 important calls wrong I wouldn't criticise him too much for those. Referees have to feel pretty sure before they give a decision. Jervis probably did handle the ball but it is difficult to see when played on the highlights and it would have been difficult to have spotted at the time. As for the penalty I don't think he would have been sure Marley was clipped nor would he have been sure it was a dive. He may have seen it as Marley slipping or over stretching and losing his footing. Not awarding a penalty and not giving a yellow card is a perfectly reasonable position to take. I would criticise him for booking Nick Ross though. There were many worse tackles that went unpunished. However, the fact that the tackle gave the referee a decision to make was a reflection of a tougher attitude in Nick's play. He is getting stuck in a lot more and improving the physical side of his game which is good to see.

OK, so the pitch was soft, but let's not make that an excuse for a very poor performance. These are professional footballers who spend hours practising their passing skills and who should have been able to pass the ball on that surface. For a team that professes to have an ethos of possession football it is disappointing to say the least that playing at home against the the side rock bottom of the league, we had less possession than County did. The stats were a reflection of a kick and run game; aimless punts upfield in the vain hope that it might land at Marley's feet. There were a few occasions when they tried to string a few passes together and when they did that it looked as though they had the potential to pull County apart. County are a pretty makeshift side at the moment with players who still need to develop much better understanding between them. They were there to be taken apart but rather than do that we change the game plan because the pitch was a bit soft! Why? Hughes is forever talking about the need for the players to be brave in playing the passing game he's drilling into them, and yet just because the pitch is a bit soft he changes the game plan thereby showing no faith in his players to play the passing game on that surface. It was time for him to be brave and show some faith in his players but he bottled it. The pitch might not have been great but it was pretty windy as well and therefore a good day to keep the ball on the deck. Of course we could expect the ball to bobble occasionally but we have better players than County and could surely have coped with that better than them. Someone else commented that the County subs were quite effective. Why Hughes did not make better use of his subs I don't know. With a heavy pitch it is obvious players are going to tire and surely there is a need to make best use of the fresh legs on the bench. With all the chasing Watkins did he must have been shattered at the end. He could have gone off with his head held high with Doran coming on earlier. Williams impressed in the first half but was much less involved in the 2nd half. By the way, why no Ali Sutherland on the bench?

No worries for tomorrow as we still have two other players who have scored more goals than any of the County players this season. Would like to know what the contingency plans are the Chairman was referring to the other day.

When I heard there was a shower heading towards Inverness from the North tomorrow I assumed they were talking about County.

I suppose whether you are a cheque book manager or not depends on whether you are the manager of a cheque book club or not.

Malky Mackay reported by BBC as saying he hopes the deal with Billy will be finalised to allow him to play at Ipswich on Saturday.

The loans option would be consistent with the Chairman's mention of contingency plans. It would also be the only way you could get someone in for the weekend this late in the week. It may be that there was some agreement with another club for a player to come on loan should Billy leave. There are a number of English Premier division sides who have very good players who are just not getting a game due to the size of the squads etc. For instance Balotelli needs some regular game time to prove he is worth a starting slot for Liverpool. Maybe not quite up to Billy's standard but in these situations you have to take what you can get!

Frankly, I'm surprised they haven't devised a way of routing the West link such that before building it they would have to dismantle some of the flood barriers they have just errected.

HT 0-0 FT 2-0 Inverness Doran County Boyd Time 62mins

The joys of the English language. Someone can be awfully pretty or pretty awful yet the meaning is so different. There are so many words with so many different meanings. I've no idea how folk who have been brought up in a foreign language ever learn to get to grips with ours. It is a recipe for misunderstanding. My father would tell a tale of when he was a partner in his firm and was attending a big evening dinner to which better halves were invited. He was with quite a number of couples when he spotted a junior in the firm all on his own and invited him over. The lad was an Indian immigrant and after Dad had made the introductions he asked the lad where his wife was. The lad said she couldn't come because she worked at night. "What does she do?" someone asked. "She's a call girl" came the reply. After a rather embarrased silence it eventually emerged that she worked on a telephone exchange! I'll drink to temperence meaning moderation.

It must have been a wealthy place in those days. It looks as though everyone had a yacht in the marina.

Well, there's another cogently argued post from Laurence. Laurence, you have recently posted a number of posts which, on the face of them seem simply to be bizarre statements or unrelated apparent facts. As Scarlet correctly says in his post, people on this forum are supportive of free speech and have been tolerent of you because of that. If you want anyone to take you seriously do yourself a favour and actually provide a little bit of reasoned argument or offer some view of your own to support your bizarre statements such as: "This isn't a referendum about the qualities of the EU at all. It is a poll which should be dubbed in the American Western style " Get them there strangers out of town " Yes or No ?" and "Democracy does not come cheap. Especially when it is driven by the right wing press" And where on earth do you get the idea that Scarlet is Xenophobic? I would have thought the fact that he chose to live in a foreign country would suggest he probably wasn't. Saying he doesn't care for you greatly isn't xenophobic - it's personal.

Why the very different attitude to Graeme Shinnie who served the club as well and for longer and who is at least staying until the end of the season ? 1: He's isn't moving to one of our rivals. 2: He's showing a bit of ambition and testing himself at a higher level 3: He's helping the cub financially by not signing a PC. Pretty obvious don't you think! It might be obvious why some people are having a go at Graeme but that doesn't make the difference in attitude fair. 1. Of course we would all rather he didn't go to one of our rivals but there is absolutely no reason why he shouldn't. He's from Aberdeen and it is perfectly reasonable that for family reasons he should want to move to his home town. Or if it is simply because they are offering him more money, why should he not take it? 2. Who says he's not showing ambition? Do you know what his ambitions are? His ambition may be to play in European competition and to lift national titles. He has more chance of realising those ambitions at Aberdeen than he does by staying put and certainly far more chance of acheiving that than Billy will at Wigan. And how do you know he does not have ambition to test himself in the English league? He is still young and success at Aberdeen would put him in a good position for a higher profile move down South at a later date. 3. How do you know that it is Graeme's choice to sign a PC rather than go now with a transfer fee? It may be that the club is refusing to release him from his contract because it would strengthen a rival team this year, or Aberdeen may not be prepared to pay an appropriate fee. Both Graeme and Billy have been great players for the club, so why on earth can we not acknowledge their contribution to the clubs success, thank them for it and let them pursue their careers with our best wishes?

Even the flags are just about the same. It does seem wrong that it comes down to the drawing of lots and there should be some way of separating teams in this situations. With just 4 teams in a group it is not exactly an improbable scenario. Perhaps giving the nod to the side that had the most corners in the 3 games would at least give an indication of attacking intent. At least the side that loses out will have the small consolation knowing that they went home undefeated.

Mckay struggled for quite a while here when the former manager had a style of play which involved lumping the ball upfield to the 6' 4" striker. After a while of this being pretty unsuccessful he finally realised that Mckay is only 5' 7" and we started playing it on the deck a bit more. There seem to be a couple of types of goals in the compilations here which represent the type of situation in which Billy will score. The first is having players who will clock his running off the ball and in particular his diagonal runs which invite team mates to slip the ball behind the defenders and into his path. The second is getting wide and drilling in low balls into the middle. But there is more to his play than just scoring goals and he has often made excellent contributions to games even when going through a bit of a barren patch in terms of goals. He works hard and pressures defenders, he can hold the ball up pretty well and lays it off well. He can also drift wide and take defenders with him making space for midfielders coming from deep. He loves to go for goal as all strikers do, but he has good awareness of others and is not selfish. One reason why strikers often flop is that folk expect too much too soon. Players like Billy score goals when they are on the same wavelength as their team mates. It can take quite a while for people to gel but football fans and many football managers can be very inpatient. If the crowd gets on a striker's back because they haven't scored in the first 4 or 5 games then they get to feel the pressure and either snatch at chances or hesitate. We're a patient lot up here and like to give players a chance to show that they can realise the potential the manager saw in them when signing them. Billy might not save you from the drop this season, but he may well be a major factor in you bouncing back up next year.

He's got a small k.

If Billy makes the difference between Wgan staying in the Championship or dropping to Division 1, then he will be worth an awful lot more to them than £150,000. Billy might make that point when discussing personal terms with them.

One can look at an individual match and identify that the reason for a defeat was that our team was so much less experienced than the opposition but it does seem that the development squad are really struggling this year. The feeder team for the 1st team has done pretty well in in recent years but suddenly as the first team reaches new heights the "reserve" team seems to have slumped. What is going on here? I think this is an important issue because we are a small club with limited resources and it is therefore important to nurture players through the development system who will be capable of moving up to the first team. On the face of it, results this season suggest there are very few players in the development squad who have the potential to make the step up. I admit that I have never seen the development squad in action so speak in complete ignorance here, but I would be interested to hear the views of those who have been. I guess it could simply be that other teams draw more heavily on first team squad members to give them game time, but I have another theory. Clearly Yogi has changed the playing style of the first team to put more emphasis on possession and passing. If young / fringe players are going to progress into the 1st team then they need to be adept at playing that way. I would assume therefore that the style of play for the development team will reflect the style for the 1st team? But what Yogi wants from his players is not easy and it requires high skill levels to pull it off successfully. It goes without saying that those in the development squad will not be as good as those in the first team and therefore they will make mistakes. When you make mistakes with this style of play you get punished. It also needs all the team to be up to standard - a bit like a weak link in a chain. Of course the development league is first and foremost about development and as long as the players are developing in the style of play the manager wants in the 1st team, then the results don't really matter. What would be interesting to know is whether the development team is playing the possession / passing game and if so, are there players who are beginning to look increasing adept and comfortable with it?

Wigan are also expected to complete a deal for Callum McManaman to move to West Brom for £4,5million this week. With that sort of cash available and with them fighting for survival in the Championship, one might have thought they could afford a good bit more than £150,000 for Billy's services for the rest of the season. They have also got an "undisclosed" fee for Shaun Maloney moving to Chicago Fire. Billy is a very important player for us and his departure could well affect our position in the league. It must be a difficult decision for the Board to balance what is on offer with the potential financial impact of him leaving. Can't blame Billy though. If he is off I am sure he goes with our best wishes and grateful thanks for all he has achieved for this club.

Don't say that. It'll just encourage him to ask for more than the club can afford!

It follows that if a club can get a player without paying a transfer fee then there is more money available to pay the player. Clubs will be able to offer players more attractive terms if they wait till the player is out of contract - hence the pre-contract agreements. If clubs can afford a transfer fee as well in order to get the player ASAP, players may question if what they have been offerred was really the best offer. As a club, we will only get transfer fees for our players if the club offering the money can pay what might more realistically be called a compensation fee in addition to what they are offering the player, and not many clubs in Scotland can do that. No doubt Aberdeen would like Shinnie to move by the end of the month but would they be willing and able to pay the sort of money that the ICT Board would be prepared to accept to allow Aberdeen to strengthen their side and for us to weaken ours?

Interesting you should mention the Hamilton game. Entrance was only 10p as a tribute to the service departing manager Alex Neil and his assistant Frankie McAvoy had given to the club. The vice-chairman was quoted by the BBC as saying "We look forward to welcoming all our loyal supporters, and perhaps some new ones, to send Frankie, and Alex, off with the acclaim they deserve." Clearly they didn't want 2 great servants of their club to leave but they understood the guys wanted to develop their careers. Rather than being branded as traitors they were lauded for the service given over the years. I don't suppose any of us want Shinnie to leave, but can we not simply respect his wish to move on and thank him for his superb contribution to our club?

Of course it is Hughes' call. But this is a forum and we are all free to express an opinion on the matter. If Yogi ever looks at any posts on here I am sure he won't feel pressurised in the slightest. No doubt he will have a good laugh at some of the views on here before deciding to do what I've suggested.

It's not about what you think about Shinnie, it's what's best for the team. I'll trust the manager on this and if he picks Shinnie then he will have my support on the park as part of the team.