Yngwie

Yes! Goal machine!

I'm hearing that Sunderland's goal v Liverpool deflected in off a balloon!

Anyone feeling confident that we can finally get a home win? Hopefully Tuesday gave the team a real lift.

Duncan out injured, shame because he was very good at Raith. Stratford in, otherwise unchanged.

On what terms would he have signed a 1 year extension?

The whole reason for joining ICT was for him to get fit, get games, get goals, get noticed and get a move. Job done. A stepping stone move that worked out for everyone concerned. So I'm amazed how many people believe that Marius didn't want to leave. Why would an international player want to ply his trade near the bottom of a minor league, where he is resented by some in the the dressing room, and being paid a relative pittance compared to most of his international teammates? After getting to Euro 2008 he would never get a better chance of a move to get his career fully back on track with a higher profile club. He wanted to move on, the club wanted to cash in. In those circumstances he may well be entitled to the money, but he is certainly not the totally innocent victim that the interviews portray him as.

So they have ambitions to leave the SPL? Pah. Been there done that.

I agree that you played very well David, best game in ages. More of the same please.

No, not if they had reason to believe that they would win the case. Do we actually know for certain that they did not include the potential liability? Is it at all possible that they did include the potential liability but have kept that fact hidden? Because if they came out and said "we expect to lose these case and have therefore provided for the cost" then that does actually influence the outcome.

That's fine, next time you meet him you can point out that ICT would have accepted 100k! :(

If we had negotiated a sell on clause with Dinamo, the transfer fee would have been lower than the actual amount we got. That's the trade off. For a club like ours, getting a definite, larger sum at the time of sale is probably more important than taking the chance of a possible future windfall IF the player does well and IF he stays injury free and IF he gets sold by Dinamo and IF they remain solvent enough to actually pay up at some point years down the line. For those reasons I can't be too critical of the absence of a sell-on clause.

Ta. Arguably though, Ireland might have tried a bit harder against Montenegro tonight if there was any chance they'd be pipped. So basically we fell considerably short.

If and when anyone can work it out, the masochist in me wants to know how many more points Scotland would have needed to get a play off place.

According to this very site's stats he got 6 goals from 28 starts. And one red card :huh: There are definitely playing similarities between Sanchez and Juanjez.

As far as I can see, a "bounce" match is a purely Scottish term, but I've no idea how it got that name. I suppose it could be defined as an unofficial, closed doors friendly, undertaken for the purpose of providing match practice and tactical experimentation against real opposition. But it's quicker to say bounce game.

The Celtic fans will be delighted by this. They've been waiting years for a proper Larsson replacement.

Cool! In my capacity as "agent" for this proposed transaction, can I claim 10% too? :)

:)

Steve, could you kindly suggest to Marius that 10% of his "winnings" get donated to the ICT Supporters Club? His gripe was never with the fans, who were extremely supportive of him in his time here (well, apart from IHE!)

Last night I witnessed ICT actually win a game, for the first time in 22 months! In that time I've seen a few draws, lots of defeats, and more than my fair share of hammerings and shambolic, gutless performances. The 4-0 at Falkirk was a particular low point, and very typical of my choice of games to attend - we'd won the week before, and won the week after. I'm not superstitious, but it got to the stage at the end of last season when I started to believe that my presence was somehow causing bad results. After the split, I picked up the car keys to head off to Paisley but then thought "No, they'll do better without me". We won, of course. Unfortunately, I felt obliged to attend the crunch match on the last day of the season. It's all my fault. The abysmal run of matches started after a fantastic week or so in December 2007. I became a dad, watched us come back to beat Celtic 3-2, and then last tasted victory in that injury time 3-2 win at Tynecastle. Life couldn't get any better. But perhaps I then got my 22 month punishment for abandoning Mrs Y and the wee Yngwette. Anyway, that bad run is over, the tide has turned, our fortunes have changed, and things are very much looking up. You heard it here first.

The reality is that Niculae was very eager to move on to bigger things, and ICT were more than happy to sell him for the sums that were on offer.

We're always happy to comment on arbiter's decisions every Saturday without knowing the reasons behind them! Alex,, this is just one of 2 claims made against the club. The other is for part 2 of his signing on fee, which is currently a local court case. BTW, the info in the announcement confirms that the transfer fee was 475,000 Euros.

Don't think it's anything to do with the SPL. I think the issue is that ICT cannot prove that Niculae wanted and instigated the transfer. My suspicion is that Niculae was meant to sign something confirming this, as a pre-condition of being allowed to go to Dinamo. But he didn't, and this is why Dinamo were unveiling documents on their website showing that they had a deal with ICT, when ICT were denying that the transfer had been completed. But FIFA obviously believed that the Euro 2008 player wanted to remain in the bottom half of one of Europe's diddy leagues whilst his international teammates were earning many times what we were paying him.

I'm pleasantly surprised that the club have proactively made an announcement on this.

Very happy to come away with a win tonight. And so were the players - you could see it meant an awful lot to them at the end, with lots of hugging and applauding the fans. The support wasn't great - about 100, and we were very quiet until the goal. Darren Dods was in our end though, keeping himself to himself. We lined up what seemed to be a clear 4-5-1 to me, with Hayes on the left and Proctor on the right. Duncan and Cox were obviously in the middle and that's where Imrie was too at this stage. In the second half though he pushed up a lot more and I'd say we were a 4-4-2. The first half was characterised by us hoofing the ball high up the park at every opportunity, whilst Raith played a bit of football on the deck. A bit embarrassing to be honest. Munro's defending and ball winning was very good, but the aimless hoofing...aaargh! On a few occasions Granty seemed concerned about Bulvitis, and clearly the fans are not the only one lacking confidence in Nauris. I thought Raith had earned a penalty when their man, with back to goal, received the ball and turned his defender. Couldn't believe our luck when he got a yellow for diving, but others chanted "cheat...cheat....cheat". A minute later we had a faint penalty shout when Imrie(?) when down under a challenge from the keeper and it was the Raith fans' turn to start that chant. At half time I was content not to be losing, but neither side had any clear cut chances. I applaud Butcher for whatever he did at half time, because we improved significantly after the break, resulting in some definite outbreaks of passing between our players. Imrie, who had been full of bite and determination if no result, was replaced by Sanchez. All of a sudden we became a real attacking threat, with Sanchez being instrumental in turning any midfield possession into chances to penetrate the Raith defence. For the first time, I was very impressed with him. Where we had previous been lumping it up to the tireless Foran to win in the air, Sanchez was receiving a huge number of passes, controlled every one of them, and usually kept the attack going. We were starting to cut through now. The goal came after Foran went off for Rooney, and we had abandoned the long ball. Getting the ball on the edge of the box, Rooney somehow managed to run right through his defender and had a chance against the onrushing keeper. I was hoping he'd get brought down by on or both of them as there was no space to get a shot in, but his effort to go round the keeper resulted in the ball getting pushed back to Proctor who simply rolled it into the empty net. We had a few more opportunities on the break to kill it off, none more so than when Rooney was played in and had his poked effort well tipped round for a corner. Relief and in the stand and on the pitch when the whistle went. I'm not sure if we totally deserved the win, particularly after the first half, but Raith never had any clear chances, and the more the game went on the better we got. It's got to be said that from start to finish, the commitment from the players was evident, and we won the vast majority of 50:50 balls. Whatever Terry said to the players after Saturday got a response, and his substitutions worked a treat too. Maybe there is hope after all.