Caley Mad In Berks

ffs Yet another soft goal conceded by OFW. Where is Esson today? Injured?

Sam Winnall scored his first goal for his new club, Sheffield Wednesday, tonight (10 Feb) in theirv 3-0 win over Birmingham.

22/1 on Paddy Power!. Couldn't resist a bit of that.

Nor should he show any bitterness towards ICT. He was more than happy to sign a 2 year contract extension with us. I cannot for a minute believe that at the time of signing he did not know what the likely budget was going to be. Yet within a very short while he is complaining openly about it, and I for one believe, deliberately engineering his exit , at great financial cost to the club. This I believe led to us making the risky, possibly 'cheap option', of promoting Foran, which many folk will now see as a mistake, and who knows what longer term financial problems lie in store, especially if we go down.

Is it just me or does anyone else not rate Billy Mckay as a penalty kick taker? I know Tansey has missed one or two this season, but overall I'd bet his record is a lot better than Billy's. Both of Billy's penalties yesterday could have been saved, and I seem to remember when he was here before, although he scored a few, many of them , like yesterday, were not exactly well struck. I'd far prefer to see Tansey take any future ones.

Good to see all the positive comments about the performance yesterday. I'm looking forward to watching the extended highlights on Alba tonight. Remainder of February is going to be tough. It will be a real boost if we can salvage a result or two from these games.

Saturday 4 Feb 2017 Scot Premier R Christie (Aberdeen 2 - Partick T 0) SL1 R McAllister (Airdrieonians 4 - Peterhead 1) Highland League D Park (Nairn 2 - Cove R 5) S Soane (Wick 2 - Forres 2) Lowland League D Proctor (Selkirk 2 - East Kilbride 2) Dafabet Welsh Premier J Oswell (Llandudno 1 - Newtown 2)

May not be enough but all credit for a good fight back in second half. Leaves us still clinging on to a slim chance of staying up.

Just to confirm what has been referred to on another thread, Ali Sutherland has joined Elgin City on a contract taking him up to the season end. Good luck to him, another who never got much of a chance to show what he could do for us at senior level.

Yes, a windfall the club knew was coming (maybe not the precise amount) and no doubt has been factored in to this year's budget already. Less of course whatever sum was agreed between OFW and the club as a re-signing on bonus last summer. I have no problem with OFW getting a share, otherwise we would have got nothing had he been 'unattached' at the time of Euro2016.

Don Cowie scored tonight (1 Feb), in their 4-1 win over the Rangers.

I think it is now evident that the risk in appointing Foran, especially on a 4 year contract, has failed. Are his assistants also on 4 year deals? Even if the management team resigned en masse, there will still be hefty compensation deals to agree, but for the longer term good of the club, this is a bitter pill that the club will have to swallow. Give another management team the chance to rebuild , get the squad sorted out, and get them playing with some passion. I fear saving us from the drop would now need a miracle, and the new management team's primary role should be aimed at preparing us for Championship football. From the Board's point of view, they have the difficult challenge of running the club with significantly less income where just making ends meet would be an achievement. I know many will say we did that before as we climbed through the leagues, and then again when we got straight back up after our relegation. But, I fear, it will be a lot harder next time (if or when) we go down. Sorry if this sounds ultra pessimistic, but I think we have been overachieving for a long time in recent years and now reality has caught up.

Lonsano Doumbouya has signed for an Austrian Bundesliga team, SKN St. Polten

Whether Billy's return is the magic ingredient or not, all credit to the club for making it happen. I'm sure the club and supporters will get a real boost from this. Good luck guys, 3 points tonight and things will look a lot better.

Billy has never been a huge success with anyone but ourselves. He has got 4 goals in cup matches for Oldham this season which makes his record slightly less dismal than his league 1 efforts you quoted. I'd be very surprised if this 'rumour' came to pass. But I'd be willing to give it a try. Maybe a move back to us would spark off his career again and help save our season. I'm just off now to finish my next script for 'Roy of the Rovers'.

I did a bit of checking on Gregory Tade yesterday. I think he is still with Qatar SC, although his Wiki page has him recorded as a free agent. The Wiki page also indicates that he has scored 11 goals in 2016/17. I know that at the end of 2016 I was able to find 4 references on Twitter for goals he had scored, so I included them in my 2016 year end summary. I can't, as yet, find any proof of the other 7 he may have scored in 2017. It is not impossible, for Qatar SC have played 3 or 4 matches in January and had two 7-0 wins, but detailed information on 'Soccerbase' etc is sketchy to say the least. So, I'll wait a while to see if any further evidence comes to light before crediting him with these 7 for 2017.

Yes, it looks clear now that RF should have gained his managerial experience by serving his time in the lower Scottish leagues. The way things are going currently, that is exactly what he will be doing from next season, and sadly, we'll be with him.

I think we all knew that appointing Foran was a risk, but I also know that the financial constraints we work under probably made him the only viable option at the time. But why a 3 year contract? Surely a 1 year rolling contract would have been more sensible. And now we are seeing that his inexperience is a real problem for us. These interviews he gives are cringeworthy. Can he really be that naive? He doesn't look the part, sound the part, or act the part of someone who knows what they are doing. I fear the worst, and can only hope that I am wrong.

One of our pre season trialists from a couple of years ago, JJ Hooper, scored for Port Vale today (28 Jan)

Saturday 28 Jan 2017 SL1 R McAllister (2) (Peterhead 4 - Queens Park 0) J Gorman (Stenhousemuir 4 - Airdrieonians 2) SL2 S Sutherland (Hat trick) (Elgin C 3 - Edinburgh C 1) Highland League D Park (2) (Cove R 7 - Fort William 0) M Finnis (Turriff 4 - Clach 2)

I agree that kick off times nowadays are ruled by the TV companies. For us 'long distance' supporters, late changes to kick off times has always been a real pain, making travel arrangements a nightmare, and usually much more expensive. I notice too that airline schedules seem to have changed for the worse as far as I'm concerned. Whereas it used to be possible to get up and down in a day from London to Edinburgh/Glasgow for 'away matches, when the last flight back was about 9pm, nowadays the last flight from back to London is usually about 7pm, making a day trip impossible. The added cost of overnight accommodation on top of travel costs makes it much more difficult to justify. Consequently, I've only been to two live games this season. I hope I can manage another in the next couple of months.

Time to dust off the"SuperCaleygoballistic...." headline again

Stuart Armstrong scored Celtic's third goal today (22 Jan) in their cup win at Albion

Yes,I agree, right from his first match, when he positioned himself badly for Astra's goal against us, from a free kick,in our European debut. Wonder how different things might have been if he'd saved that one? Certainly a great day out at West Ham would have been on the cards if we'd made it to the next round.

Saturday 21 Jan 2017 Scottish Cup A Rooney (2) (Aberdeen 4 - Stranraer 0) A Shinnie (Bonnyrigg 1 - Hibs 8) Highland League A Greig (Brora R 6 - Deveronvale 2) S Soane (Fort William 2 - Forres 6)