DoofersDad

Hi Terry! It doesn't sadden me at all because I think there is generally a balance on here. There are a handful with extreme views at either end of the spectrum but the majority give a range of opinions somewhere in the middle ground. I would like to think that the management of this club do look at this website from time to time and give a bit of consideration to what is said so that they get a flavour of what the fans feel is good and bad about the club. Of course, those of us that post here represent a very small proportion of those who go to watch the team but nevertheless it probably gives a fair enough reflection of what folk think. And as a football manager he will not be suprised that there are some amongst the faithful who would like to see him gone but he will be encouraged by the general tone this season. Things are far from perfect but he has responded to the calls for a more attractive brand of football. We are playing some good stuff and this team is not far short of being a very good side indeed. If some of the defensive frailties can be ironed out we will start winning - and with some style. I think Terry will see that most on here appreciate what he is trying to do but will lose patience if we continue to ship goals and lose matches due to sloppiness at the back. The club is in much the same position in the league as when he took over and it is clear we want a little better than that. He would expect no less from the fans.

Yes.

Barrowman - already more this season for the Pars than in 41 matches for us.

No. I'm saying that I hope that by January we will be scoring enough as a team not to be requiring a loanee as good as Rooney was. I'm also saying that come January he will probably not be the player he was in our promotion season.

Motherwell v Newco! Now that will be interesting.

If he can't make it at Swindon then he is not going to get the breakthrough he would have been hoping for. As many have found out before, if you don't kick on when there is the opportunity then nobody wants to know you. He started off pretty well at Birmingham but was not able to get a run in the first team and has now dropped down the pecking order. His confidence will be gone and if he comes back here he will struggle. He should have stayed here for another season in familar surroundings. A good season in the SPL would have made him a a much more marketable commodity. A two year contract with the intention of selling him on after one would have done both him and the club a lot of good. Having said that, I can't say I blame him, it is difficult for these young lads to turn down offers of significantly more money especially when they probably have unrealistic expectations of what they might acheive. As for having him back here, I would hope that with the options now available to us there would be absolutely no reason why Terry would feel the need to take him back.

Sorted it for you.

Whilst County remain unbeaten having still failed to score a goal from open play. They have only concended a single goal - and that against Celtic. Strange indeed. The fact that a lot of results have been strange is clearly evidenced by the fact that Doofer's Mum sits proudly on top of the Prediction League.

An Independent nation of the Scottish Highlands and Islands would require a separate National Football League of the Highlands and Islands. And as annual champions that would mean European football every year for ICT! Bring it on!

Great news. Congratulations to them all and I hope they all feature on the field and come back to Inverness safe and injury free. We've probably made these new signings in case they don't.

Let's hope he does better there than Lee Cox. Cox just got 2 starts for Swindon and is now out on loan at Oxford. It's a funny old world - whenever we sign players struggling in the nether reaches of the English league folk moan about lack of quality yet Cox is a player most of us would love to have kept. There are very few who seem to do do better once they leave ICT. There is something about ICT which brings the best out in players. It must be the great atmoshere inside the TCS and vocal support of the massive crowds.

Arbroath have shipped 15 goals in 7 competetive games this season so their defence is not good. I would expect the likes of Sutherland and Shinnie to look good against that kind of opposition. Neither looked good against Celtic so let's hope the performance against Arbroath gives them the confidence to dominate the Motherwell defence. One worry about Sutherland (a player who I have always liked by the way) is his ability to give goalkeeping practice to fans in row R rather than the opposition keeper. Keeping the ball down is a basic skill which he surely must practice in training. On match days I have seen him smash the ball into the back of the net during the warm ups but when it matters it usually goes over the bar. It's frustrating - he's capable of being a very good player indeed.

According to the Arsenal website deals with both Roberts and Brislen-Hall are confirmed. http://www.arsenal.com/news/reserves-news/roberts-finalises-inverness-loan-move

Interesting report on the BBC website. http://www.bbc.co.uk...otball/19421013 Getting to the group stages increases UEFA's "solidarity fund" paid to the SPL by £1million. Scottish clubs will also receive a co-efficient ranking boost as a result of the Glasgow side's success. ICT benefit from this so, well done, Tinks! Well done also to Terry and the team for allowing Celtic a morale boosting win on Saturday ahead of their crucial match against Helsingborgs last night!

I'm pleased to hear he played well against Arbroath but he was pretty mediocre against Celtic.

Congratulations to Butcher to picking a full strength side. This will allow further progress in the cup and ensure the players who will start against Motherwell go into the game with a bit more confidence.

I think a happy 90 minutes on the park would bring more money in.

This sounds really good to me. Although one the one hand I am disappointed that Sutherland is not playing up front and I wonder what is happening with Oswell (not even on the bench tonight - I think) Roberts looks as though he could be pretty useful. I also am excited by the idea of an arrangement where up and coming youngsters get the chance to show what they can do here. If they are on Arsenal's books they should show some real promise and whilst most won't make it through to the big time, some will. I know there will be some here who only want players on long term contracts and who will say these lads will not be playing for the shirt, but I think it will be good to see a range of promising players in the side from time to time. And whilst they may not be playing for the ICT shirt, they will be playing for a career with one of the best clubs in World football, so they'll be trying alright.

All together now ..... Let's all laugh at County, let's all laugh at County, La la la la. La la la la. and repeat - till we get gubbed by Arbroath tomorrow. Two serious points though. Three premier division sides knocked out tonight including the holders so this competition is already opening up. No messing about with this competition, please, let's make sure we win tomorrow and we could get a morale boosting, money earning run going. Secondly, Adams rested several players including Munro and Tokely. The report says that without ext ICT keeper Brown, the defeat might have been heavier. What is clear is that County have little depth and are heavily reliant on the defensive qualities of those two. If County are hit by an injury or two to key defenders they could struggle.

One despairs of the thought process of some people in authority. They will believe the unsubstantiated testimony of a handful of untrustworthy people but ignore the hard evidence of over 500 tests which failed to show he had ever taken a banned substance. I think Armstrong takes the view that no matter what the evidence says, he isn't going to win his case and it is simply not worth several more months or even years of legal wrangling, preparing cases, being constantly questioned and the subject of speculation. I think and hope that he is at peace with himself. He knows the truth and knows what he has achieved. The same strength of character which led him to his remarkable achievement is now allowing him move on and I, for one, admire him for that.

That's really interesting but yesterday on another thread I said:- "But sometimes, no matter what coaches see day in and day out on the training ground, that form never translates itself to the match day situation and you just have to accept that something different has to be tried. Surely we are that stage with the way MacKay and Sutherland are played and it is worrying that Butcher persists with this. Remember when he first came here and persevered with Barrowman when Rooney was clearly a far better option on match days. It must be frustrating for coaches when players who shine on the training ground perform poorly on matchdays. Equally it can be exasparating (in a nice way) when players who are nothing special in training do much better in matches. The skill is recognising these situations when they arise and responding positively to them. The concern with Butcher is that he seems to be too stubborn in persisting in what he thinks should work rather than recognising what actually does work." I don't doubt that Sutherland is doing well on the training ground, but I find it hard to believe he is capable of the kind of traditional wing play of skinning the full back, getting to the by line and crossing. I am sure that what he may be doing well on the training ground are aspects of play which would be great attributes to a player up front. What he can also do well is to turn a defender and fire an early hard shot (usually over the bar, admittedly,but he finds the space and has a go). If he is doing great things as a winger in training (and I don't doubt you) then that is really encouraging but only serves to strengthen my conviction that those skills linked with his physical attributes would make him an effective striker. I would love to see him play up front with Mackay. The fact is that whatever he may be doing in training, it didn't work playing him wide last season and it isn't working this season. Personally I think he could be a real star for ICT but he really has to play where he is most suited. Even with Nick Ross sadly out for a few games, we have good options in midfield but we are lightweight (literally) upfront. I just don't see what Butcher has got to lose by trying Sutherland up front with MacKay. I think it could give us the real cutting edge we currently lack up front.

That was some pretty hefty challenge he took when battling for the ball. Did it go beyond the bounds of fairness or is it just a consequence of Ross being too lightweight and easily brushed aside? The ref clearly saw nothing wrong with it and Celtic went on to score. How did others see it?

There is much which Butcher has done which I disagree with and one or two things he continues to do which bemuse me. But at the end of the day it is results on the park and the quality of football which determine whether the manager is doing a good job. He took over when we were cast adrift at the bottom of the SPL and whilst we just failed to stay up we ended up running away with the SFL title the following year in some style. Last year was difficult for reasons which are well known and which I won't repeat. We can certainly hope that this season we won't be ravaged by the kind of injuries we had last season and as this is now very much Butcher's team it will be reasonable to judge him on how we do. In looking at that we need to consider the very tight financial constraints he is working with. If we get relegated then it would be reasonable to ask questions but to my mind, if we continue with the more enerprising style of football he has started this season with, then anything between 9th and 11th represents a perfectly adequate performance from the management team and anything above that would be good. I know there are things he has done which have angered many and he hasn't exactly set the heather on fire but based on results to date, there is really no justification for questioning his position. Could somebody else do the job better? Probably - several of them are on this forum, apparently - but it is simply not going to happen. Even if we stay winless till Christmas the Board could not afford the compensation. So like it or not, Terry is staying and there is nothing to do but get behind whichever team he picks - even if you could have picked a better one.

The discussion about Munro and Tokely is interesting and will be sure to be a major talking point throughout the season. On the face of it they appear to be doing well but I think that is more of a reflection of the way Adams sets out his team to play. They are playing not to lose and as a result Munro and Tokely are being protected and their lack of pace and mobility is less of an issue. Because we are now a more attack minded side, our back four and particularly the 2 central defenders are getting rather exposed. I suspect that if Munro and Tokely were still in our side, they would be doing no better than King and Warren. I also think that if teams can break down County early on and they are forced to push more, there are several teams, us included, who could take good advantage of the weaknesses of our 2 ex defenders. One thing's for sure, when we play County it will be a lot more than just a local derby, there will be a few people with a point to prove. Of those, nobody will have more of a point to prove than Terry Butcher, but unlike Munro and Tokely, on the day he will be reliant of the performance of others to prove his points for him. I think he will be more animated than ever. I haven't decided whether I will watch the game or watch the manager on the day!

I disagree. The youngsters will get their chance but I think the manager needs to pick what he thinks is his strongest attack minded team available for this one. There are 3 reasons. We have yet to have a win in the league this season and there is a need for more time for the players to gel and particularly for the defence to gel. We are creating chances and scoring but are shipping too many. Get that right and we could win a lot of matches this season. Now is not the time to mess around with the side. There is also no point in giving players a "rest" because there is a weeks international beak after the Motherwell match. Linked to that is the need for team to get the confidence of a good win to get some momentum going. We need our best players playing well to acheive that. We should not under-estimate Arbroath - note that the Rangers were held by Berwick today and after 3 games are only 4th. Getting a win and hopefully by 2 or 3 goals or more should do wonders for morale. And as many have been saying on this forum, we need a decent cup run, both to ignite some momentum of support but also to help with our difficult financial situation. It may only be Arbroath but this is an important game for the club and we need to approach it with as much seriousness as if it was a crunch league game.