DoofersDad

Play that well next season and we will beat both halves of the evil empire.

Hint from Terry on BBC interview that there may be a change of mind on a decision or two after tonight!

Having initially reeled from the shock of this I decided to try to see things from TB's perspective. I opened a bottle of wine and have gone through a couple of cycles of glass full, glass half full, glass half empty, glass empty and am now at the the glass and bladder full stage. Much as I am sad to see the likes of Munro and Duncan go, I accept that there is probablty a brutal logic in this. The aim of the club must be not just to stay in the SPL but to move us on to the top 6. This needs to be done on a static budget. So what are the options? Status Quo? No chance. Some players in that scenario will not progress and we simply cannot afford players on fairly significant contracts if they do not have what it takes to step up to the next level. That applies both to legends like Munro and Duncan and younger players like Blumenstein and Odihambo who have been given a chance and who have not made the grade. There are others who have made the grade or who the manager feels have the potential to step up. Of those who are staying are a number of youngsters with real potential. Not just Ross and Sutherland but Cox and Rooney as well who we sometimes forget are still very young. Some of the emerging talent such as Shinnie and Morrison will presumably not be costing the club a lot but are keen to stay because they see the club as a great place to develop and to showcase their talent. When they move on they should be able to maximise their earnings. This leaves a small number of quality players who the manager is keen to keep and who the club can afford to offer better contracts to in order to encourage them to stay. This still leaves a gap - a big gap, but I think Butcher sees this being sorted by short term contracts and loan deals. He has stated before that the club is attractive to players who have undoubted talent but are not quite realising their potential elsewhere. He feels some players see Inverness as a good location for rejuvinating careers and players will come on short term contracts to gain confidence and put themselves in the shop window. Better still are loan deals where clubs want to have players getting regular competetive football to help develop them. In this way we can, on a short term basis, get the services of players we could not otherwise afford to sign. By making the statement before the end of the season, Butcher is giving players released the best chance of attracting attention from elsewhere but I don't think he and the club are doing that just to be decent. I doubt that they would be letting these players go if they were not pretty confident of getting decent players in on loan or short term deals. There may also be one or two more significant signings in the bag. So a mix of a small number of proven players on good contracts, emerging youngsters and players brought in on short term deals/loans seems to the way forward and will be the pattern for the future. With very limited resources, this may be the only sensible option. I doubt anyone at the club has taken any pleasure from the hard decisions taken but they could well be the correct decisions. Yes, I'm sure we all have views on who we would have kept and who we would have let go but we have to back the manager on his decisions here . The proof of the pudding will be in what emerges at the start of next season and the time to judge him will be this time next year. It is certainly the start of a new era and should be interesting!

Will we be in the SPL next season or are we entering a 5 a-side league?

The Club statement tells us very little. Money may be tight but have we not been told that the money available for next year is the same as last? That being the case, it is surprising that someone who has started 35 times for the team this season is apparently not wanted next. Grant has also scored some important goals for the side and is 5th highest scorer with 4 (4 more than Nick Ross!). It may be that Grant is at that age where he is not going to get better but he still has a few years left in him and he has a wealth of experience. If retained, he might not start 35 times next season but he would be an extremely valuable cover player at the very least. The number of starts he has had this season clearly indicated that Terry rates him so I guess there is something else going on here. Grant may well feel that he should have the captaincy back and may be unwilling to play another season under Foran's leadership on the park. Perhpas Terry is confident that he has a stronger central defence lined up for next season and there is simply no room anymore for Grant - time will tell. Whilst I would be extremely sorry to see such a fantastic servant of the club as Grant Munro leave, I also accept there is no room for sentimentality in football if the club is to move onwards and upwards. As you step up to another level, it is inevitable that you have to ditch players who have bust a gut in getting you to where you are. But in this case it is surely not sentimentality to say that Grant can still do a useful job for the club. I don't accept this is about finance and I doubt that the club will come clean on the real reason. It's a sad day for the club IMHO.

9/11 was truly horrific and there have been other incidents - and no doubt the security services have prevented other attrocities as well but I can't help thinking that the powers that be rather overstate the threat. Just think of the impact of a bomb of the London underground and how easy it would be to plant one there. The fact that there has been no such incident makes me think that whilst there may be a lot of muslims with passionately held anti western philosophies, there are very few who believe mass murder is a justified tactic to advance that philosophy. It is a sobering thought that the last act of terrorism in the UK was nothing to do with international politics, it was about Scottish Football. Perhaps now that the Americans have got Bin Laden they can be invited in to sort out the moron(s) threatening the lives of those associated with Celtic football club and those of postal workers and others who might just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I know I'm wrong and a lot of people will disagree with me for this, but I'd like to think he was treated with all the respect he deserves (ie kicked out of the back of a helicopter from 10,000 ft.) Near enuff.......being buried at sea pretty much flies in the face of Muslim Burial traditions! It would be more appropriate for him to be simply taken in a laden bin and disposed of in the local council tip

These things just don't happen. County know they are safe and can relax and enjoy the game. Cowdenbeath equally know that they are into the play offs and will have their mind on that. I can see County getting 5 or 6 in this one.

Duncan on only as a late sub and we lose 1-0 with a poor performance. Says it all for me. I am convinced we do better with Duncan in the side and the stats prove it. I really don't understand some of Terry's selection decisions but then, we are on course to equal our best ever finish after having bounced straight back into the SPL under Terry's leadership - so what do I know? I think this is a bad decision but I also think we need to give the manager the benefit of the doubt for now and see what next season brings.

Whether or not we had won or lost yesterday it would have been perfectly reasonable to post about a memorable match which took place exactly 12 years ago. If you can't relive memories then what is the point of having them? And don't be so negative. OK, so it was a disappointing result yesterday and a tired end of season performance by the sound of it - but we're still in 7th place and set to equal our best ever finish. There is a lot else to remember fondly from the performances which have got us to be in this elevated position. Reflect back on those and be happy!

There is a possibilty of showers in London tomorrow and apparently a certain Mr Doncaster has written to the Palace and others voicing a concern that a combination of the rain and all the horse sh*t on the streets around Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey will make the streets slippy. He is concerned that someone in the crowd might slip and hurt themselves and is demanding that all weddings in the area scheduled for tomorrow be postponed for safety reasons.

It might be helpful if someone from the club explained what happened here. I personally have no knowledge of this at all but would make a couple of points. Firstly, the future of the club depends on nurturing the best talent in the area and we cannot afford to lose youngsters because of any poor management. Having said that, it is important to recognise that a number of youngsters will leave and moan about the coaches because they were not prepared to put the work in and keep the discipline demanded by the coaches and which is necessary to make the grade. All of us, but obviously the youngsters and their parents in particular, need to have an assurance that the organsation of the youth set up is of the highest standard in order to provide the environment for the kids to develop their potential. Secondly, if the kids are to develop their full potential it is important that they have faith in the coaching staff and other ICT staff they have contact with. It is therefore not particularly helpful to publicly criticise the coaches even if they have seriously mismanaged something. On the face of it, it would appear that there are issues to be addressed, but it would have been better to take them up with the club rather than criticise publicly. As I say, now the criticism has been made, it would be sensible for the club to make a statement. After that, things should be sorted out behind the scenes. A public spat will not encourage kids to stay nor will it encourage others to sign. That cannot be in the interests of the club. The fact that the lads reached the final at all does credit both to the youngsters and the coaching staff. That is really positive - let's build on that.

I think he's been a useful addition to the squad although I appreciate others will have see him more often than I have. Maybe I have seen him on his better days but I think he's done a good job in difficult personal circumstances and that he should leave with his head held high and with thanks and best wishes from the fans.

The Green Party's position is that the future prosperity, indeed the very survival of our society depends on a healthy environment. If you pollute the environment and use up all the planet's resources to benefit from a quick buck now, you will not have an environment in the future which will be capable of sustaining us. You can only acheive that by influencing the wider economic and social policies which impact on the environment. Environmental pressure groups are all well and good and can do useful work in protecting specific environmental sites but what are they protecting those sites from? They are protecting them from the environmental consequences of the economic and social policies of the Government of the day! We need a Government which understands that our long term health, happiness and prosperity requires a healthy environment. Economic activity needs to be sustainable and social activity needs to be in harmony with the environment. That's the function of government and it's why the Green Party has to be a mainstream party increrasingly shaping the policies of the day.

Here's one for the future. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=5gDuRHEY6Xs

Let's hope Terry doesn't sign this joker - the budget doesn't extend to a dresser. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=zpL9eQ6mm-k

I'm with Capitol Caly on this one. I think the SNP have done as good a job as any Government in recent years but the common sense the Greens bring to the political debate means there really does need to be one or two greens in the parliamnent. I disagree that either party should be considered one issue parties - the SNP have proved that in Government and if you read the Green manaifesto or ever listen to the excellent Green MP, Caroline Lucas, on Question Time, you will know that their manifesto covers the whole range - Green politics is not just about the environment, it is about respect. If you can respect each other and respect the environment in which we all live then that to me seems a good philosophy for life. As for AV, the problem with the current system is the risk that you can get people elected who have the support of very few people. If the 4 main parties have roughly equal support and the likes of the Greens and UKIP and perhaps an independent or two pick up a few votes, then some extreme single issue party can get elected with only about 20% of the vote even if they are the least favoured party of the other 80%. With AV the 2nd and subsequent preferences count if your first choice candidate is bottom of the poll so as candidates drop out voters' subsequent choices are added on to the remaining candidates. The end result is the person elected has some positive endorsement of at least 50% of the population even if they are not the first choice of many. Those opposing AV are actually saying they would prefer to have someone elected who does not necessaily have that level of support. It is mainly the Tories who are in favour of this and this is because they know that they will attract less 2nd coice votes than other parties.

I take it that by "that pointless screechin female" you are refering to Loraine MacIntosh who, IMHO is really excellent. Her singing, far from being screechy, is bluesy and soulful. Her vocals are always understated beneath Ricky Ross's main vocals which is really effective and gives the band their distinctive sound. Deacon Blue are playing on my PC at the moment and very enjoyable it is too.

Good post, 12th man. The club really has come a long way in a short space of time and this season we are on course to equal our best ever finish. Surely in the next 10 years we will make a little more progress and it only needs a little more progress to get a top 6 finish, to win one of the two major cup competitions or to get a place in Europe. There should be some great occasions for the club in the next few years but we need to be realistic and recognise there will also be some bad times. We need to keep behind the team during the not so good periods and if we do that, the occasioonal major success will come and can be celebrated. :ictscarf:

But they did us a favour today by beating Hibs. That helps our bid to be 7th which, despite the negativity of some posters recently, would be a brilliant acheivement. If Hamilton could also see their way to beating Hibs again, and St Johnstone, that would be very helpful.

Talk of a hovercraft! Isn't that just a lot of hot air?

Just seen the highlights. Only fair to give credit to Kilmarnock for their goal. Brilliant intricate passing movement, brilliant lobbed final ball and brilliant finish. If Barcelona had scored that the media would be raving even more about them being the best team in the world. On the other hand, I rather enjoyed the Andy Barrowman impersonation in the 2nd half - just to prove they weren't Barcelona in disguise.

Money shouldn't come into it. If Jonny needs an op then he should get it done as soon as possible.

He took his time about it though. If any of the defenders had been doing their job they just might have got back in time to block or at least put pressure which might have caused him to pull it wide from 2 foot. If i was a Queens defender i would be wondering why Hutton felt the need to take so many touches. He saw Barrowman close by and naturally concluded there was no threat.

He took his time about it though. If any of the defenders had been doing their job they just might have got back in time to block or at least put pressure which might have caused him to pull it wide from 2 foot.