clacher_holiday2

You joke but what about any of that isnt fixable?

I think you're all missing the real issue. As I've said before, we're in competition with Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Real Madrid etc and its a competition us and the rest of world football are losing heavily (Old Firm included). Busing schoolkids from Tain to watch football will not work, when they can easily sit on the toilet and watch Real Madrid on their phones for free. We've been living in a globalised world for years now and its really starting to take its toll. Part of the reason the Old Firm readily found new recruits all over the country was the blanket media coverage given to them by the Scottish Press, there was always something to talk about no matter how pointless the gossip. You're more likely to see kids/teenagers in Inverness and everywhere else wearing Chelsea or Liverpool tops than either of the Old Firms. As the influence of the printed press in Scotland decreases, the number of new fans who gravitate towards the sides most overly hyped in the media they do take in, is going through the roof. Once upon a time the fans of the Inverness clubs had a 'big' team which continued over the years until we were on a level playing field with them. Nothings really changed in that regards, as a huge number of our younger fans will call on the likes of Liverpool or Arsenal as their 'big' team. You cannot compete with the investment the TV firms globally have made into the top sides propoganda, so why bother. A switch to summer football for me is the only easy solution, 3 months with no EPL games on TV and the chance to catch potential new fans attention. You cant fault somebody in Inverness thinking 'f#ck this' when having to choose between sitting down the dump in the freezing cold for £20 on a Saturday afternoon or waiting until 5.15 for the evening EPL kick off while having a drink, with their feet up.

Our club is no different to other small clubs in Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Thailand, India or Mauritania, that is suffering at the hands of the EPL's propaganda. Theres been lots of talk over the years about Inverness based Old Firm fans but the town will be no different to everywhere else in the world, in that young people are picking a shade of Red or Blue to support from down south. The Old Firm themselves will continue to suffer a loss of new fans to these clubs as the years roll on, even in areas of Northern Ireland where wearing one strip or the other was once considered a school uniform, the kids are all decked out in Liverpool or Man United tops. You see it in Glasgow as much as anywhere, just step into a pub on a Sunday afternoon when theres a 'big' game on and you'll find dozens more people taking in the EPL than whatever Scottish game Sky is taking pity on that day, even if the Old Firm are in action. The facts is that all entertainment is global and easily accessed anywhere, at any time, for virtually free on a phone or at home in any quality of coverage you choose to pay for. You wouldn't expect somebody to only go see Scottish Films, listen to Scottish Music or watch nothing but BBC Scotland, so why should football be any different? Theres no way to compete with the investment Sky and now BT have made, sadly joe public in general has the attention span of a ADHD goldfish and like nothing more than having their entertainment spoon-fed to them. Raising or loweirng ticket prices will have no affect on crowds now or in the future regardless of who the first team coach is, in the short term there will be a section of fans that it might encourage along but over time they will be bred out of existence too. The last throw of the dice for Scottish football IMO is a summer league, where we get 3 months of EPL-less football to make a name for ourselves in. If clubs worry abotu losing the festive revenue then surely something like the League or Scottish Cup games could be re-arranged to be played over Christmas, like pre-season friendlies?

Where else in Inverness would be a worse site for a stadium? Out Bunchrew way? I can't think of anywhere worse than what we have now.

The year the 10k rule was dreamed into existence up, the lowest average attendance in the SPL was St Johnstone's, at just over 7,000. The whole thing only became a real farce when Falkirk were denied promotion even after agreeing a ground sharing deal with Airdrie.

I agree Davie, all this worrying about the future of this club potentially being squandered for the sake of Yogi's vision is hardly worthy of our time. Lets go talk about stripes or no stripes elsewhere. The happy clappers complacency is mind boggling, if anything I'd suggest they go support another club in the Highland League who are in dire need of people willing to clap along to any old guff. The post match interview with Hughes after the Celtic game has given me nightmares this week, the "reporter" should've asked him how many goals Celtic have scored from 80 yards down the park after a clearance this season. You clear it and push up, its not rocket science, every team up against a superior opponent does that and sometimes it works. When do they ever outplay them with tapping it about?

When did Aberdeen last play in front of a crowd like that? They suffered with the pressure alot more than we did until the spot kicks. We almost beat Celtic down there early in the season in front of more people. The rest of your points about Hughes positive influence on affairs are laughable, the stats don't lie. I can't think of anything positive that has come from the Hughes era besides wins over Ross County, which we've been doing for 20 years anyway. Scarlet- I did actually ask somebody from the trust earlier on this thread how I would go about having the chairman answer some questions about the recruitment process and never got a reply. Agree with IHE- the next CaleyD round-table chat should be with the chairman, its possible to ask serious questions without being cheeky about it or offending, it would certainly shut a few of us up if KC can tell us what the plans are going forward.

You do raise an interesting point in amongst your waffling, where are all of the Hughes supporters? I'm not sure where to start on the rest of this, at what point did Hughes earn this respect you say he deserves? You bring up IHE as an example of an established poster on here showing respect, yet IHE himself openly has more personal digs at our previous managers psyche than anyone else on here, how is that showing unqestionable respect? Why assume that people are not posting on this topic because they think it is beneath them? I'd say its safe to assume most people on here are firmly on the fence on this issue and thats only after our rousing win up in Dingwall, after that Dundee United game the pitchforks were out in force. You have totally misread the vibes coming from the support as a whole. "The Board is NOT going to react in the same way that they think because the members of the Board are mature business persons and rational and reasonable people NOT usually likely to go into orbit with knee jerk reactions. And NOT young bucks feeling their oats and letting that feeling overcome their brains." I guess you could say the the board demonstrated some rational thought in bringing in a guy on the cheap, who had been shunned by the rest of Scottish football after multiple failures. Tell me SP.. in all this talk of yours of being fair, rational, respectful and downright gentlemanly when discussing the merits and potential of Hughes, at what stage do you sit down and look over the stats? There has been a swing of 17 points and 1 trophy between ourselves and Aberdeen since Hughes took over, we were clear in 2nd place with games and points to spare, where are we now?

I think this pretty much sums up the shallows of IHE's psychological 'insight', he stubbornly drags up our reactions to Butcher leaving as the major cause for this thread yet talks about the guy more than anybody. Why do you want me to answer questions about Terry Butcher? If I did enough digging around on here I could find you dozens of posts I made during the Barnsley debacle that mirrored my thoughts on his move to Hibs, I was right in saying he had taken us as far as he could but we needed somebody else to push us further.

Where were we in the league when Hughes was appointed? I'm sure using CJT's resources you'll be able to have an old Courier or something in hand with a league table. On a serious note, what is the process for a fan to raise an issue with the club via yoursell's? How about a detailed explanation of the managerial recruitment process from the SPFL Chairman of the Year, what due diligence was taken with regards to Hughes? Did we contact the likes of Hamilton to ask why they didn't take him on? Was his multiple past failures at clubs of various sizes and leagues taken into account during the process? How intensive can an interview be when the response to "who will you bring in as assistant?" gets a reply of "a dinnae ken lyke, al hink aboot it fer 6 weeks"? Whats the story behind Bennett leaving?

I see you're still persisting with the false view that the anti-Hughes camp are suffering from rejection at the hands of Terry Butcher and that the man jumped ship before it had the chance to sink, preserving his ego. I think how we reacted as a fanbase after he left proves that first theory of yours as being BS, the threads are all recorded on here if you want to go back and find me the scores of jilted TB fanbois to prove me wrong. If you cannot then your analysis is wrong and nobody gave a sh1te that he left, the players themselves had a visible lift in spirits for a period aswell. This site was buzzing after Butcher joined Hibs, everybody was looking forward to what could come next after him, not desperately trying to cling on to the guy. As for our expectations being too high at the point Hughes arrived, thats garbage, we were points clear with games in hand of Aberdeen in 2nd when Hughes came in. We were comfortably the 2nd best team in Scotland at that stage and had qualified to face the worst team in the SPL in a semi final of a competition that Celtic had been knocked out of, we were 10/11 favorites to win the LC at the time with Ladbrokes. Expectations might have been high but they were realistic, nobody was talking about winning the league were they? If anything I would accuse our fanbase overall of having too LOW expectations, the majority clearly believe that Hughes was the best possible candidate at the time and is the man to lead us into the future, speaks volumes. Infact further to this post, wasnt it Steve Marsella that most on here were worried about losing, rather than Butcher? lol

I've already had this discussion and am not in agreement that anything was abandoned in our match against Ross County. The only real difference was that we had 2 fit wingers for the first time in a while and that, IMO, better facilitated the balance that Yogi has been striving for. The big worry there Caley D is we only really have 2 wingers and if one is out his whole system falls apart as in previous matches, and why play a system if he doesn't have fit players to make it work ? http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/inverness/256881-its-not-broke-dont-fix-it-says-john-hughes-after-first-win-at-inverness/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/26877820 Time will tell. Im not here to be proved right that hes a trainwreck, I hope youre correct in feeling things are still moving forward in the right direction.

I'll repeat myself from earlier in the thread- my fear is that the first time we lose playing wide men and direct, Hughes will point to that as the reason we lost and use it to justify a return to 'total football'. Maybe Yogi is right, myself and other dissenting voices may just need to be educated?

Interesting to hear Warrens views on 'total football', despite how shocking the results, manner of goals conceded or the online outcry from a typically submissive support was in reaction to it. CaleyD, the win up at the pikeys came about due to abandoning the tippy tappy sideways stuff up the middle that Hughes just a week ago was keen to promote. "Togetherness" hasnt come from Hughes footballing vision but the footballing vision of the fans and the previous manager, if you want to talk about dismissing information relevant to a discussion for the sake of having a knock, then ignoring how we played to get our last win and how it contradicts the pass-it-in-circles stuff Warren and Yogi love.is doing just that. Hughes had to drop his own principles to bring us back on track, we aren't there because of them.

I'm getting sick and tired of the Butcher talk, why assume that people who dont want Hughes here are Butcher fanbois? I was delighted when he buggered off to Hibs and if you look back far enough I wanted him to bugger off to Barnsley over a year ago to prevent the mediocre end to last season we were surely going to have. I like all of you want whats best for ICT, what we have now is a manager who has to fight against his own principals and philosophy to pick a winning team, which will do no good for anyone in time. Between now and the end of the season, either the fans or the manager will be proved wrong. If we lose when playing direct then Hughes will whinge about educating the players and when we lose with his tippy tappy garbage, we'll whinge about him being stubborn. I for one can't wait for the no doubt exciting times ahead in the Yogi era, my biggest fear with him being such a hot commodity in world football is that future generations of ICT fans won't be able experience the vision of the man as he progresses beyond where we can take him. It takes a special insight and talent to notice that Barcelona are quite good at football, thus copying them might work, fantastic stuff.

As I said earlier in this thread, why compare to last season famous collapse? Regardless of what happened then or10 years ago, we should be aiming to win every single match.

lol @ Adams post match comments. Thought he was about to start crying when talking about that penalty. Lets hope Yogi learns a lesson from playing the two wide men, we'll see what he does next time. #fcukbarca

Been much better so far, 'kin great strike from Doran, cant believe he was left out.

Tonights the night, I'm backing us on skybet, shut me up please Yogi.

He was given the award before he hired Hughes and was praised by one and all on here. It is my opinion that his stewardship was not tested until Butcher left, he claimed the recruitment process was rigorous and left no stone unturned, leading to a man who was sacked by 3 other chairmen being the ideal candidate for a job running the 2nd best team in Scotland.. Thus he failed a major footballing test we would expect the SPFL Chairman of the Year to pass, as other details about the recruitment process have come to light it would appear they were flimsy in the extreme. What other full time team in Scotland would hire a manager that didnt really have an idea who his assistant/staff would be? Why was it footballing giants such as Hamilton Accies (and no doubt others that never made it into the media) turned down Hughes when he applied for the job there? If the decision was purely financial then fine, I can live with that, at least come out and say as much.

The articles been talked about on the SACKED thread aswell. The guys full of it. Who advises the SPFL Chairman of the Year on footballing matters I wonder? Sack them aswell.

That article has changed as I'm sure those who read it last night will testify, yesterday he was quoted as referring to a final between Inter and Barcelona. Inters masterclass is besides the point, its Barcelona he swoons over... ""If you look at the European Cup semi-final two seasons ago, Inter Milan against Barcelona, Barcelona total football, a team I would pay money to watch, and yet it's a boot up the park, a flick on and it is in the back of the net and the cup goes back to Italy," he said." Their passing it about style was ineffective, it was 2010 they played and in the first leg of the semi Inter beat them 3-1 and none of the goals were from a "boot up the park". I saw that BBC article aswell and it only refers to Barcelona without their best player for the spell over Christmas. I can only go by what I've seen on TV but they are alot worse off without him, this season it doesnt feel as much of a loss as he wasnt playing up to his usual standards until he came back in January. Regardless of the ins and outs of the details, theres no doubt that Hughes is talking absolute p1sh throughout the interview lol. The 'total football' he talks about (passing it about in circles) isn't played by any of the top sides anymore

Not only has he no real idea about what the 'Barcelona' style of play is given they have used overlapping full backs for years and all of their midfield go out wide but he obviously hasnt watched Barca lately without Messi playing. Run of the mill La Liga sides can take them apart without Messi in there, even Celtic almost got a result. People have been saying Barca are past their peak now this season, they haven't, its just that Messi has missed a few weeks of it

Without even checking, the last 4 finals were in order... Dortmund v Bayern Munich Chelsea v Bayern Munich Barca v Man United Inter v Bayern Munich

TBF to Yogi, I'll give him his dues, that Champions League final between Inter and Barca was pretty fcuking great 2 years ago.