DoofersDad

Plymouth could be attractive to Butcher. It seems the further from Inverness he is, the better his team plays.

Gets my vote

Rooney is always going to cause defences problems with his presence and whether he scores or not he is going to help create space for attacking midfielders. You have to have that type of player in the side or everything becomes too predictable. Actually his strike rate is not bad considering how few starts he's had. I would be interested in knowing what his goals per 90 minutes are and to compare that with Barrowman. Barrowman has had prolonged chances and has been unable to perform at a higher level. And whilst Eric showed a lot of promise in his few appearances last season, he is totally unproven. For me it is a no brainer that Rooney should be starting routinely with Eric getting a chance as a regular sub when he's fit. Barrowman to fill in as and when required.

We have to start winning at home and if we can't beat the likes of Morton at home then we've no chance of being in the mix at the end of the season. TB must have finally learnt that a more attacking formation works and he simply must go with a similar line up. A good home win next week with the strikers building on the confidence they will have got from today's game could see us go on a run. Let's hope the fans get behind the lads and keep the support going to the final whistle whatever the performance.

Great result. Has TB been reading the boards? He seems to have taken advice that we need a more attacking formation and that the players he has brought in over the summer are not as good as the ones that were already here.

Forget about the brothers who play for lowly Livingston - Barcelona have just been beaten at home by a team of Rubin's cousins.

A great night for football in Europe. Lots of goals and underdogs winning. it's great to see a side from a town of only 17,000 people gubbing a big club and it's the sort of result that allows supporters of other small clubs to dream of european glory days. Then there was the mighty Barca losing at home to a team from Russia that I had never her of until this year. To top it all the scousers lost in injury time at home. Happy days.

I hope that the fans realise that the board are full of sh!t and that with the resources available we will be doing well to compete with clubs as big as Dundee, Partick and Dunfermline. Of course, but it is difficult to defend TB if he came in with those expectations of the Board. I haven't heard TB complaining that he hasn't been given the resources he was promised so presumably he knew what resources he had available. If he cannot achieve what he was taken on to do with those resources then it is reasonable to criticise him. On current showing I think we will do well to come 3rd or 4th and I would almost be pleased with that, but it doesn't alter the fact that 2nd would still be failure.

Some people really need to remember the Board's basis for taking a high profile management team on last year. Great if we stayed up but it was not expected. The strategy was to develop the team so that we would go straight back up if we did go down. You may think that was an unrealistic expectation of the Board but that is what TB has been brought in for and therefore anything short of promotion is failure. Don't knock the fans for trying to go along with the ambition of the Board.

What sort of behaviour is "descently" behviour? Is the behavour of the majority going down ?

Nerd, I understand your position but I don't agree with you. Personally I would like there to be less "foul and abusive" language but I think we need a bit of common sense here before we kill off any kind of atmosphere. No doubt it is very honourable of the club to try to uphold standards of decency but why only pick on the youngsters in section G? What about the players who are actually paid by the club and might be expected to set an example as role models? Will players (and managers) who use the F word be marched out of the ground should they momentarily let their standards slip? I think not.

LEEDS!!! When did you move?

Will there be an interactive button with a commentary in English, for the benefit of that tiny minority of non-Gaelic speakers in this area? doubt it What's the Gaelic for "Gypsy"?

and you know this how? Question this put in English and might I reply? I cannot see the future, but I do have belief. Oops. Don't know what happened there. Belief eh! So what is Father Christmas bringing you this year?

Well said. These chants are just part and parcel of the game and nobody should take offence. Whilst the youngsters were trying to sing and generate some atmosphere, there were many others hurling abuse at the team but apparently that's OK. But there is a real lack of consistency. If sanctions are taken against the fans then are they also going to take action against the players? When Duncan's error led to the 2nd goal I don't think Ryan Esson said "Bad luck Russell, old chap. I'm sure the gaffer will have a jolly good laugh in the dressing room about that at half time" 3 or 4 years ago there was a youth international or B international at the stadium - I can't remember which - and it was a freezing winter night. I sat away in the corner right at the back to shelter from the wind. Nobody was within 10 yards of me. During the game I stood up to get the circulation going and to stop my *rse freezing to the seat. A female steward saw me and walked up all the steps in the stand and told me to sit down. Lets have some common sense here and actually encourage the young lads to support the team by making as much noise as possible and to have some good natured fun.

Close call between Duff on crutches and Bulvitis with the way he played yesterday.

I wish Butcher would stop saying "it's hard to take". What would he know about it? We're paying to watch the rubbish his side is playing whilst he's getting paid shed loads. What's hard to take about getting paid loads to do a bad job?

I was at the match today. During the first half and having nothing better to do, I read the match programme. In it TB says "I've been really pleased with all the players that I've brought in." "It's a strong start" and "I've been pleased with the way we've handled things". Clearly he's easily pleased. Esson - Three goals conceded at home and he played well - says a lot about the defence in front of him Proctor - very poor Munro - OK but not a leader. Good cross for the 2nd goal Bulvitis - Dreadful. Nearly as bad as Lionel against County Shinnie - Promising debut. Showed good skill going forward and passed well. But a bit lightweight for the back four perhaps. Cox - Pretty anonymous today. Need much more commitment from someone playing in the middle of the park. Ross - Excellent. Started to play really well when the rest of team realised he was actually in the team and not just warming up on the touchline, Made a couple of telling runs into the box and a couple of crosses which just needed a touch. Encoraged by this, TB promptly took him off so that Lionel could come on and give the ball back to Partick. Duncan - I've always been a fan of Duncan. Much of what he does is under appreciated by many of the fans. Today was the worst I've seen him play. No idea why TB left him on the park. Foran - No doubting his commitment and bravery. He did very well to get on the end of Munros cross for the 2nd goal but I remain to be convinced that he should be in the starting line up. Barrowman - Wouldn't have been my choice to come off at half time but then he shouldn't have been on the park in the first place. Gave the away support who were sitting wide of the goal some catching practice but at least he had a go. Hayes - My MOTM. Prepared to take players on and did well to win the penalty. Creating a lot of threat down the left in the 2nd half so TB switched him to the right. Sanchez - Didn't do too much today. Shouldn't be taking corners. Rooney - Barrowman on for 45 minutes: ICT 0 - Partick 3. Rooney on for 30 minutes: ICT 2 - Partick 0. There's other factors of course but Rooney always poses a threat and it was his introduction that really sparked the revival. He needs to be on from the start. Djebi-Zadi - Oh dear! First touch was to give the ball away. However, if he hadn't got sucked too far into the box, his first touch should have been to stick the ball in the back of the net. Butcher. Did well to bring Shinnie and Ross into the starting line up but why take them off? Taking off Ross and bringing on LDZ must rank as one of the most barking mad substitutions ever. I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and to prove us doubters wrong but surely there can't still be ICT supporters who are not worried about the way he is managing this campaign.

Another unusual statistic of that season was that they drew both matches against Man U 3-3. It seems they had problems with centre backs as well.

I agree, I really don't understand you at all. That's because you are contradicting yourself. I took issue with you because you were agreeing with Absent Friend who came on with some nonesense about some of us having unrealistic expectations for the season. You then say I was right in what I was saying. Of course we were all expecting Motherwell would give us a humping given the way we've been playing but my point was that if TB was doing the job he's been paid to do, we would not have gone into the match with such low expectations. You then say you would not go to games to support the team if you thought the team were worse than ever and go on to say you always have been ICT and always will be. If you always will be ICT then you'll watch them and support them however bad they play. I think we probably agree. We had low expectations for the match against Motherwell because of respective recent form, but high expectations of what the team should acheive by the end of the season because of the stated ambition of the board. And of course we will go to ICT games even if the team is the worst ever - just maybe not quite so often.

As others have said. A loss is not a good result. It might have been a good performance but it was not a good result. And why were you expecting a humping? There seem to be too many people who take the view that now we are in the SFL we have to expect mediocrity and its par for the course to be given a gubbing by the likes of Motherwell. I don't buy that and neither should anybody else. Remember, when the board took TB and MM on it was with a clear mission. Whilst the Board seemed to resigned to relegation the clear remit for TB was to bounce straight back should we go down. To bounce straight back up requires us to have a better team than the one that went down. Last season we would have expected a tight game against Motherwell and it is reasonable to expect one this season. What is not reasonable to expect is that we be taken to penalties by Montrose, draw against the likes of Airdree and get beaten convincingly at home by County. Had we had results like that last season we would have been a laughing stock. We may only have lost 2 matches this season, but had we still been in the premier division and playing as we are we would be lucky to have secured a single point. I appreciate it is early days yet and the team will get better, but then so will others. Given that TB's remit is to get us straight back to the SPL it is not negative to say that early indications are worrying. We look as though we are going to be a mid table side at the moment and that is not what TB and MM are being paid shed loads to deliver. I hope I'm wrong and perhaps a convincing win against Patrick Gristle on Saturday will give me cause for a bit more optimism.

No. It isn't just you.

quote] I'm worried.

Put Roscoe up front. We might score some goals then. After all, he has scored more goals for ICT than any other player in the squad and has a better strike rate than Barrowman. He'd probably get booked less often too.

This is basic stuff. It's not what they should be working on in training as they should already have these basic skills if they are playing at this level. The worrying thing is that TB has brought players in who don't appear to have these basic skills and if they don't have them now, they never will. I'm worried.