DoofersDad

Last 2 posts absolutely spot on.

Whatever Yogi feels is his strongest team. After a great day out in Glasgow on Sunday the rest of the season will be all about the league. We need to be in as stong a position as possible once the cup euphoria is out of the way and we cannot afford to play a weakened team against Hibs. The only reason for resting anyone is if they are not fit enough to play on Wednesday. Yogi can think about who might play on Sunday after tomorrow's crucial league match. Tomorrow should see us clinch a top 6 spot so we simply can't afford not to give this full attention.

Oddquine, you posted this link http://moneyweek.com/endofbritain/ in an earlier post. I have read it and on the face of it there would seem to be some logic in the worrying conclusions it draws that economic meltdown is just round the corner due the level of the UK debt. If that is the case then to argue that an independent Scotland would be less at risk if Scotland's per capita debt is less makes sense. What doesn't make sense to me is that if the Westminster parliament and the London centric banking institutions' irresponsible borrowing policies are leading to imminent economic meltdown, why does the Yes campaign remain totally focussed on currency union? Given that the doomsday scenario the article predicts would cause a catastrophic devaluing of Sterling, I would have thought a main reason for independence would be to disentangle the Scottish economy from the fatally flawed pound ASAP.

Even if Salmond is all for the monarchy, Oddquine is still correct to say there is a far better chance of getting rid of the monarchy in an independent Scotland than in the UK.

You've just given them the answer to the question

Not a chance that would have stood had it been at the other end. There is a view that keepers are sometimes over protected but that is a foul on the keeper every time.

I think our poor performance has taken away attention from something which I think needs some comment. Watkins' red card was clearly harsh as he won the ball and didn't even make contact with Paton. Paton over-reacted and undoubtedly his behaviour influenced the decision to send Watkins off. Given that Utd were already 5 up and Paton was the person who injured Mckay in a similar challenge earlier in the game (when the referee didn't even award a foul), I have to say, I am not impressed. I trust that Watkins' card will be successfully appealed as Ciftci's was in the League Cup clash earlier in the year. Otherwise it gives the message that we are at a bit of a handicap when their players are apparently allowed to grab our players by the throat but our players are not allowed win 50:50 balls fair and square. I know the referees have a difficult job to do but we need a bit of consistency and we need the authorities to stamp out the play acting whether by instruction to referees or by taking effective retrospective action based on TV evidence.

Let's look on the bright side; a defeat today eases our fixture congestion and we won't now suffer the ignomy of being beaten by a League 1 side in the semi-final

I like the positive thinking vibe but lets start with some positive thinking about a really important league game on Wednesday. At the end of the day, whether we deserve to be at the top table of Scottish football will be judged on where we finish in the league and not on whether we happened to win the lesser of the two cup competitions. Hope you're really buzzing for all of next week and not just Sunday! :ictscarf:

It was a depressing result but don't let that get in the way of the facts. There are still 12 league games left. We have games in hand. One of those is on Wednesday night at home to Hibs which we should win. That would put us 3 points above utd with same games played and 4 behind out of form Motherwell with a game in hand. Our other rearranged game is away to Motherwell so a win there would bring us within 1 point of them and still with a game in hand. We would be just 4 points behind Aberdeen on the same number of games. If we win our games in hand we will be in poll position for 3rd spot and within touching distance of 2nd. We are still very much in the race but lose these games in hand and top 3 will be tough. This is why Wednesday night is such a huge game. I really don't know why everyone is talking about our season being as good as over when we still have every chance of finishing higher than we ever have before.

Brill has a couple of games when his performance is not great and suddenly we drop him - get real. Dropping him would not help his confidence and to suddenly bring Esson back for a couple of key games would put huge pressure on him. If he made any crucial mistakes we would then have 2 keepers with their confidence shot. If Brill is shakey in the next 4 or 5 games then fair enough but given his performance over the course of the season it would be madness to drop him now. If Brill is going to be dropped for a couple of below par performances then who else is for the chop for the final, Mckay?

It's disappointing but I wouldn't read too much into today's result or the fact that it came on the back of a similar scoreline against Celtic. Against Celtic we got the backlash of them having lost their unbeaten run and today I think the fans' focus on the final next week was also reflected in some of the players who didn't seem to have the usual drive and determination. But despite that in most aspects of the game we matched Utd in the first half and were 3 down because of uncharacteristic blunders from players who are usually among are most dependable. We were down to 10 men for all the 2nd half and then down to 9 for the last 20 minutes and yet were never over-run. Utd never looked particularly threatening except when they scored. First half blunders aside, I've seen us play worse and win. The scoreline was highly flattering to Utd and it was just a day when nothing went right for us. Folk seem to have very short memories. Just a couple of weeks ago we absolutely blew County apart with a performance that had everyone drooling and which, despite the scorelines, was way more dominant than Utd were over us today. These were the same players and the same manager. Fact is, we have a decent team which is capable of playing very well but which maybe lacks the extra dimension to adapt when the game plan goes to pot. We'll bounce back and have further excellent victories this season. I do, however share concerns about the 4-4-2. I think it stifles the fluidity of the team and there seems to be a bit of uncertainty about who should be doing what. At times today, Vincent in particular was often in the same place as Foran,Watkins or Tansey and I lost count of the times someone behind me shouted "one of you!". Apart from getting in each others' way, the converging on each other reduced the outlets for passing the ball. This makes Wednesday's match against Hibernian particularly important. It, more than Sunday's final, will show what the players and the management team are made of. We are still in with a very good opportunity to clinch 3rd or even 2nd in the league and that should be our priority. Given respective league positions and Hibs current form, we should beat them. And if we beat them, we confirm our top 6 place which for me, would represent the target of making this a decent season. A win would keep us very much in the league race as well as give us a confidence boost for the final. A dismal performance in front of a dismal crowd could well be the signal to a bit of an anticlimax to the season. Wednesday is almost a "must win" game and just as we need the team to play well, the team needs the support behind them. TBH I am expecting a crowd well below 3,000 for Wednesday night but hopefully I will be proved wrong. Come on ICT fans, get behind your team and come out in force to support the lads on Wednesday! Sending Terry Butcher down the road to Edinburgh in no mood for fish and chips en route would be a nice little bonus.

I wouldn't read anything into the Foran substitution. The game was lost by then and I think it was wise not to risk both Foran and Doran further. With the game gone and Foran's performance not up to the standard he demands of himself he was hardly likely to be Mr Chatty we he came off.

Well, a fair few stayed away this Sunday. If the thousands who decided not to pay just £10 to support their team in the Quarter Final of the main cup competition maybe offered a prayer or two for their team instead, all I can say is that prayer doesn't work.

She was homeless and selling copies of "The Big Issue".

The problem with that (apart from Alex's crucial point) is that it all depends on what you believe your God or potential God expects of you. There is that inherently miserable presbyterian philosophy which says that you need to forgo all pleasures on this earthly life to earn the eternal pleasures of heaven. I have visions of followers of that philosophy being denied entry at the Pearly Gates by St Peter telling them that there's simply no room for miserable beggars like them in heaven.

Important point that. Hopefully that will keep the boys fired up and not be distracted by the game the following Sunday. Hibs and Motherwell drawing today was a good result for us because it also means that Motherwell's poor run continues and that improves our chance of a top 3 place. I Know that next Sunday is our first tilt at winning a major trophy and it will be a great occasion but we are still in the main cup competition and in with a great chance of a top 3 league place. Those must remain our top priorities. Going into the final knowing that top 6 is confirmed would be a great morale booster.

Quite perceptive of you....that's the last sausage roll I buy from there... In what is likely to be seen as our best season ever, I never thought folk would be complaining about the icing on the cake.

Just saw this on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/26488401 Realy sad news for former British number one and daughter of ICT''s first manager. She's clearly got one hell of a fighting spirit and she will certainly need that now. Treatment is improving all the time but that is not a good cancer to get. Let's just hope she can pull through and devote herself to what she recently said she wanted to do - coaching youngsters at the game she loves.

I think what is happening in Aberdeen is more of a reaction to how far Aberdeen have slumped from their glory days than about specific enthusiasm for a league cup final. They are hungry to return to that and see this as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. They need to get the public back in numbers to boost their income and be able to mount a serious challenge to Celtic in the league and to be competetive in Europe. This final is their opportunity to revitalise their support and they have grasped the opportunity superbly and really galvanised the public. On the other hand, for us to get into the final is a great achievement and almost an end in itself. The fact that it is new to us should be sufficient for anybody who might be inclined to support the team to make the effort and go. Of course it would be great if there was 10,000+ but it is still a good number for a club with no history of big crowds. I suspect that should we reach the Scottish Cup Final there will be a much bigger buzz about the place because it is the main cup competition. I would expect ticket sales to be 50% up on the League cup final. That to me is why this Sunday's cup match is more important than next week's.

Interesting couple of interviews on the currency post independence on Radio Scotland this morning. First up was Danny Alexander ahead of a speech he is to make on the subject today in Edinburgh. He reaffirmed that Treasury advice was absolutely clear that currency union would not be an option in the event of a "Yes" vote. All the major UK parties were agreed on that and it was simply not on the table. Next up was John Swinney who reaffirmed the SNP position that currency union was their preferred option and was what they expected to happen. Responding to the point about the clear position of the other parties, Swinney argued that it was in the interest of the UK to have a shared currency and that this would be the result of post referendum negotiations. He said that notwithstanding the views of the UK parties, whether to have a currency union with an independent Scotland or not would need to be put to the voters of rUK and the voters would see that currency union made sense. Pressed on what the SNP position would be if despite his confidence, rUK confirmed that there would be no currency union, Swinney simply said that it wouldn't happen because rUK would not be prepared to take over Scotland's portion of the national debt. The interview ended with that but it would have been interesting for Jim Naughtie to have explored this further and I am sure we will hear more in due course. On the face of it, this seems a rather extraordinary position to take for two reasons. Firstly, Swinney's confidence that there will be currency union seems to be based on the belief that rUK will baulk at the concept of absorbing Scotland's share of the current UK national debt. On a per capita basis, Scotland's debt will only have 10% of the impact on an rUK voter than it does on a Scottish voter. The SNP position seems to be that they are asking the Scottish voter to accept a debt burden 10 times the level of the additional burden which would cause rUK voters to baulk at monetary union. It is, of course, true that the rUK voters burden is an additional one whilst the Scottish burden is simply their fair share, but given the SNP is saying that without monetary union Scotland would not pay their share of the UK debt, this is a financial burden which the Scots taxpayers would otherwise not have to bear. This brings me to the 2nd point which is whether Scotland actually could renege on paying it's share of the national debt if it walks away from the union. I don't know enough about these things to comment on the legal position of that but what I do know is that if rUK was left with Scotland's share of the UK's debt, Scotland would find negotiations on the vast range of issues which would require agreement extremely difficult indeed. The Scottish voter needs to understand that if Scotland walks away from the Union and particularly if it expects rUK to shoulder Scotland's debts then the message to Scotland from their nearest neighbours will be a well known two word phrase - the 2nd word of which is "off". The "Yes" campaign needs to get real and stop relying on the romantic ideal of independence and this "it'll be alright on the night" attitude. I for one want assurances about what kind of country I will find myself in and what kind of currency I will be using before I would consider voting for change. The main UK parties have made a very helpful contribution to this debate by being absolutely explicit that there will be no monetary union in the event of a "Yes" vote. That leaves four options which are:- Using Sterling but without monetary union Joining the Euro Using another currency without monetary union (e.g. Panama using the US Dollar) Establishing a separate currency When asked which of those options it is to be, we need a better answer than "it will be something else which we have been told explicitly we cannot have". The campaign will be picking up as we move into the final months before the referendum. It really is time that the political posturing stopped and some serious answers were given to serious questions. Unless the "Yes" campaign can start giving proper answers to this kind of concern then there is not a chance of a "Yes" vote. A further point here is that it is actually quite extraordinary that the "Yes" campaign have stumbled so blindly into this problem. There is no plan B and since it became clear that what they assumed would be the case is actually not the case, there has been no sign of plan B emerging. They are simply in bemused denial. Clearly it is a concern that those leading the campaign have so badly and naively misread a fundamental issue and one is left wondering what else is based on ill thought through assumptions.

You might have a bridge but do you have a castle?

No! The league cup is the lesser of the 3 competitions we are in. Both because we are still in with a chance of winning the main cup competition and because there will be significant financial benefit in progressing against Dundee Utd, this Sunday's game is actually more important. Wednesday's game against Hibs is also more important as defeat there could have a serious impact in our bid for a top 3 place. Winning the final on Sunday would be a landmark for the club and obviously very nice but we need our strongest teams possible for the two games ahead of it.

As long as they don't then watch the game live on TV it's fair enough. I can't understand why people still cling to these outdated ideas, but if they do and they stay true to their principles then you have to respect that.

Dougal, a rocking chair for the composer and an electric chair for you.