gordieict

No not soley to blame but his treatment of established players, dreadful tactics and blaming everybody else apart from himself makes him more guilty of our current problems than anyone else. I hope I am wrong and he turns things around as I think we are stuck with him, after all I can't see anyone else wanting him

Rossco - 33yo who, to me, seemed less interested in the season as it went on. Perhaps his quietest season for us, and much of the time just had his head down and got on with it

Golobart - 19yo loanee with 'the potential' to go further. Gave 110% every week and more than put in the effort to make amends for any mistakes he made (which, once he found his feet) were few and far between.

With all due respect to Sir Tokely, I know which of the 2 I would opt for if I was looking to the future and long-term aims of the club.

For long enough fans (myself included) have said how the club seems to lack ambition by trying to get new talent to the Highlands, and indeed retain them if/when we happen to find a gem. Now they've chosen to do this, the fans are seemingly appalled at this particular change in tradition at our club.

Williams didn't come to us until midway through the season IIRC, so to say rosscoe kept him out the team is inaccurate. Rosscoe himself struggled to maintain his place towards season end, suggesting that he either wasn't as good as other options around him, or that he'd not recovered fully from an slight injury.

I'll add here that I wish rosscoe all the best for the future. A true legend of the club and someone local kids have and will look up to. It's a shame there's so much speculation and/or conspiracy theories around his departure and I would have loved to say a proper goodbye to him. But these things happen in life and in football. Should he and/or the club have a change of heart and he stays, I'll be delighted, but I can't help thinking it may be the right decision for the future

Whatever the reason's a legend leaving in such circumstances is not the right decision for the future. Also your choice of the 2 is not an option because when lads like Golabart come in and do reasonably well they will be of and the club has to search for a replacement. Golabart was off at the first chance he got, Tokely committed himself to his whole footballing career at this club and would have been here for another if it wasn't handled so badly. I am not saying Butcher has an easy job but his choice to get rid of established players before he has found long term replacements is staggering

Maybe I am missing it but can't find it anywhere on clubs official site that the clubs longest serving player is leaving

so I sounds like their marketing is better than us at least in the lottery and use of the stadium. Another problem we have is by constantly taking in loan players and players on one year deals we have no players of value to sell and a club our size needs to be a selling club

The bitterness on this forum is unreal can people get a grip please.

I don't think it is all bitterness, people are rightly concerned with the way things are going with Butcher Luke. This season will be a testing one and I hope your optimism is proved to be correct

unless of course they are following the Rangers business strategy

Alex the 250k that is brought in by St Johnstone is a similar amount that we recently got from the Muirfield investors Either they are doing something better than us or are heading for trouble

ok so what is your thoughts on the way Tokely has been treated ?

Charles would be very interested to know what your thoughts on the treatment of Tokely are, or does spinning the party line not allow you to do that?

Well there is probably only one answer to that - at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock - when we threw away our "system" and went to an attacking 4-3-3 and/or 4-3-1-2.

Sorry I meant to say at home, so that narrows it down even further. Times are hard and football is competing for people's smaller amount of disposable income, Butchers tactics while not the only reason are a major contributing factor to our falling attendances.

I would have thought that the question mark and the two exclamation marks at the end of the sentence would have heralded a suspicion that a tad of sarcasm had been utilised. But perhaps answer one question with a mere yes or no. Is it a distinct possibility that the the reduced attendances and season ticket sales could also be linked with the standard of football served up last season ?

I have no doubt the standard of football has not helped attendances, after all I am sure we all know folk who has said "I am not going back to watch that p1sh" last season. Footballs an entertainment business, how many times did ICT entertain last season?

To be honest a £250k injection is not a lot of money in terms of keeping the club running. I think ICT are now suffering from not only the general decline of Scottish football but a history of very poor marketing, something that St Johnstone with similar attendances have got right meaning they can afford to offer players better deals than us

Tokely speaks out again.

http://www.thescotti...st-at-boss.html

Mmmm. I wonder what the size of cut Foran had to take with his new contract?

The other interesting thing about Foran's early contract deal is that as the captain with a new contract, he should surely have been central to working with his team mates in persuading them to stay. One assumes that the manager wanted all the players offered new contracts to stay (except Tokely, of course) so this sorry saga doesn't seem to say a lot for the persuasive powers of the captain.

I think that's a bit harsh on Foran, after all he doesn't decide the length of contracts or wages players are offered. Unfortunately the days of players like Tokely are gone and with it the loyalty, players will go for better terms and there is little Foran or any captain can do about it

Just for your information, we are open today and tomorrow from 10am - 3pm. Renewals processed over this weekend will be processed at the early bird rate. Standard prices will apply as planned from Monday. We are also open Bank Holiday Monday and Tuesday normal hours 10am - 5.30pm

If there was ever a post highlighting the lack of season tickets purchased to date this is it

When the club shop resorts to pleading requests it's a fair indication that things aren't too rosey in the garden

Dougal

If the club weren't pushing for season ticket sales they would be doing something wrong,

I am not sure that Grassa is Director of football anymore I think Butcher does that job as well

for those that are saying we couldn't afford a new contract for him could we afford one for Hogg while he was injured and hasn't proved himself at the club, admirable to give Hogg a contract while suffering a bad injury but nowhere near as deserving as Tokely

Alex I do agree that finances are very tough but what effect did Butchers style of football have on attendances? Also could the club not afford Tokely or did they not want to afford him? Butcher did not create all the problems we currently have but I certainly feel he is adding to them

There is only one legend there

A Tokley statue right in front of where Butcher parks would be ideal

It's pathetic. Those who have not signed clearly don't want to be here. If they do sign it will only be because nobody gave them a better offer. If what Kenny Cameron said is true that good progress is being made with identifying replacements then there would be no need to give those who haven't signed more time. It is noticable that other clubs are signing players who were with us last year and who we wanted to keep but there is nobody new who wants to sign for us. There is no evidence that there are players lining up to come North. Extending the deadline tells the world we have nodoby lined up and that we are desparate.

I know Terry has unearthed some good players in the past and he may manage to again but the signs are not good at the moment. I will be surprised if we end up with a squad as good as we had last year and I think most will agree that we actually need a squad that is better. So, in response to another thread, yes, I'm worried.

I will be astonished if we end up with a squad as good as last year and in my opinion that was one of our weakest ever

One of the things that galls me most about this and it was clear it was going to happen is that a legend of his status wasn't even given a proper send off, good luck Ross you deserve better

To be honest I am just as worried with the finances of the club as our squad, we seem to be worse of in terms of budget than we were a few years ago. To be honest TB is having to compete in the SPL with a Division 1 budget. I think the days of part time football might not be that far away

I see nothing wrong in Butcher giving a dealine as he wanted to know where he stood squad wise, he probably knew he wouldnt get them all to agree by the deadline date but hoped to gee up a few of them to agree.

Now I have my doubts about Butcher but it seems that with some whatever he does at present is wrong, if he had come out and said he wasn't going to put a deadling on players I am sure the same people would have been saying that was wrong and he should have set a deadline.

Does anyone seriously believe we have a squad nearly as good or likely to be as good as the one that was relegated from the SPL. Were our finances so dramatically different back then. I feel that if we go down this time we will stay down as we wont have the strength of squad to get back up.

ICT are not likely to know any more than we do as Jonny is (effectively) a free agent and neither he, his agent nor Aberdeen are under any obligation to tell them.

thought that may have been the case