Yngwie

I think the ICT tweet caught the moment much better - "I think a little bit of wee might just have come out."

Our last 4 Scottish cup ties have comprised one being won in a replay and 3 being won right at the death! Cup wins don't come easy.

Well you should have! January transfer window thread a month ago:

"It's just a flesh wound!"

Thankfully we can look back laugh about it, and I hope he can too. Who knows, we might not have won if it had stayed 11 v 11. Glad to see he's staying with us for at least another season, and it gives him a chance to demonstrate to our fans that Greg Tansey is not actually "the only decent things to come from Liverpool".

Danny Williams and Carl Tremarco have been offered contract extensions. https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/inverness-caledonian-thistle/825755/undefined-headline-1561/ Note also the comment by Hughes about some of our players being reluctant to sign up, preferring instead to keep their options open (ie find a better offer), which is understandable.

There's a lot of ill-informed, wild speculation on this saga........so I'm now going to add to it. There was much press/twitter comment on deadline day about Tansey's release clause being "ambiguously worded". Let's run with that. There's a clause that refers to a £200,000 minimum fee being required to release him from his contract at ICT, but the actual wording doesn't oblige the club to sell him there and then. Just for example, "Should a transfer offer of no less than £200,000 be received in writing by the employer within a transfer window, the Player will be granted permission to discuss personal terms with the club making said offer." So, everyone thinks there is a release clause, but it can be argued that there isn't really. Due to the lack of time to find a replacement for such a key player, ICT decide with some reluctance to enforce the strict wording of the clause, rather than the spirit of it, call Tansey in and apologetically point out that whilst he is now entitled to speak to Aberdeen, it would be pointless because ICT are under no obligation to sell him and have no intention of doing so. As a sweetener, though, they will agree to let him move on in the summer, perhaps even for less than £200,000, to keep him motivated. Tansey then has a choice. Consider his contract to have been breached, walk away and get into a lengthy legal battle about how the ambiguous contract clause should be interpreted, with only a chance of success. Agreed to ICT's proposal. He therefore "elected" to stay at the club, happy to see out the season, but having little choice really. And shortly afterwards, he publicly disassociates himself from the agent who failed to secure the release clause Tansey was assured was in place. Wild speculation, as I said, but I'm pretty sure it's an awful lot closer than the "loyalty" explanation. Football's a short career and no player at our level chooses to earn half his market worth. You'll also note that there was nothing in the statement that said anything along the lines of "Greg looks forward to seeing out the remainder of his contract". I don't think I'm being "negative" here - perhaps a bit cynical, granted, but most of all, realistic.

Whilst we'd all love to believe that he'd rather be here than earning double and potentially challenging for the league title, I can't help thinking that ICT's statement is cleverly worded and somewhat economical with the truth.

Apparently his agent thought he could get him out if it, but it wasn't as straightforward as he thought..... But seriously, well done Greg, business as usual please.

What a knob. Basically he's not happy because we don't conduct our dealings in public in the way the tabloids would want us to. They'd also love us to get into a war of words with Aberdeen, which I'm sure we have no desire to do. All of us would like to know what happened here, but in a case like this it's actually very difficult for ICT to make a statement that answers the questions without going into confidential and commercially sensitive contractual details, which ought to remain private.

BBC Gossip quote a Daily Express article stating that Dundee have offered contracts to Danny Williams and James Vincent.

Apparently it was in the contract small print that the £200,000 release clause could only be validly triggered by an offer from a club that has won the Scottish Cup within the last 25 years.

Can I suggest that ALL of our players would rather be elsewhere! The difference is that most of them don't really have a choice of anything better or more lucrative than ICT at this particular moment in time, whereas Tansey believed he did. I applaud him for having maintained thus far a dignified silence on all this, (in public, at least) and hope he has the drive and professionalism to keep giving his all. He may well feel some bitterness just now towards the ICT board - but surely not towards Yogi, his teammates or the fans. In addition, he should perhaps be having some strong words with his agent who at the end of the day, agreed to a release clause that wasn't adequately worded to secure Tansey the move his performances had earned.

I don't think anybody has said it yet, but well done to ICT for resisting the temptation to let go of a key player in order to bring in a hefty sum of cash. Better still, just as they stood firm when Dundee Utd wanted our manager, it was good to see our Board fight tooth and nail (with perhaps a bit of hair pulling too) to resolutely fend off the raiders from the east by whatever means were possible. It does no harm to send out a signal that we aren't the pushovers we perhaps once were.

Keith Jackson tweets: "Aberdeen's bid for ICT's Tansey has collapsed under a tsunami of bad blood between both clubs. Won't happen now. Storm brewing." "ICT unhappy with Aberdeen's conduct. Aberdeen believe the player has been shafted. Much unhappiness."

County could easily use their forthcoming League Cup Final monies to beat us to the signature of the very kind of player we desperately need - with some of our fans having willed County to be in the very position where they could do so!

Payment terms might be valid grounds, though, and are surely the reason why the deal hasn't gone through yet. If Aberdeen's offer is £200,000 to be spread over 1000 years, would we have to accept?! I certainly hope not, but we don't know the exact wording of the clause, or the offer, so all we can do is speculate.

A week ago on the "Player of the season to date" topic, you said: Just saying.....!

Agreed. And without the release clause, how much would Aberdeen be offering? £60,000, increased perhaps to £100,000 when we reject the first bid? You can easily see how, with pressure from the player and his agent, and our policy of not standing in the way of a player who gets the chance to earn vastly more than at present, we would have ended up with much less than we are going to get here. £200,000 would be our 3rd highest transfer fee ever. The timing absolutely sucks, of course, leaving us no real time to identify, properly assess and strike a deal with suitable replacements, if indeed there are any available. But nobody saw this coming, and it's only happening at all because the Dons failed to land Don Cowie.

There's a major flurry of tweets from journalists on this, I'm afraid. Latest is that we want the £200k paid upfront, Aberdeen want to pay in instalments (unsurprisingly!). Until that is resolved, I don't think we have to let him speak to them, but I'm resigned to the fact that a deal will be done.

Are we doing one of those "pay what you can" days today?!

Source? Great news, but if Esson is staying, I guess it pretty much means that we'll be saying farewell to (at least) one of Brill or Fon Williams.

This seems to have passed under the radar, but on 13 January Dani signed for Arenas Club de Getxo, which is near Bilbao. They got promoted to the Spanish 3rd flight last summer, and ground capacity is 1,200. 40 years ago their manager was a young Javier Clemente, who went on to manage Spain. http://arenasclub.com/el-delantero-madrileno-dani-lopez-es-el-nuevo-refuerzo-del-arenas/

I always like to see the "wee" teams do well, but not County. We are in direct competition with them for players, fans, sponsors etc and any success and additional money they have can only be detrimental to ICT.

No, they didn't.