Caley Mad In Berks

I think that if he has any pride, he'd tell us where to go if we tried to get him back, after the way he was treated by quite a lot of posters on here!

My thoughts exactly, Johnboy. You deserve a green dot, but I'll not give you one as I find it all a bit silly.

I see that all three of our Irish lads have come in for some stick, from different posters, since the Saints game. So what has gone wrong since their dominance at the end of last season? Is it just the pre season injuries to Foran and Hayes delaying their return to full fitness? And, in Rooney's case is it just that SPL defences are harder to score against that SFL? Certainly 4 goals (including a penalty) is not a prolific return so far. I remain optimistic that they will come good again, and I suppose it is encouraging that we are holding down a top 6 place without them being at their best. Thoughts?

Personally I hope Fraser does well in Malta. I can't help thinking there has been undeserved negativity aimed at him, not only in this thread but other similar ones, since he left us. Admittedly he isn't as good a keeper as his predecessor, Mark Brown, nor his successor, Ryan Esson, but nevertheless I feel he did an adequate job for us. I prefer to remember him more favourably for his 'out of this world' save against Celtic, which as much as anything else won that memorable 3-2 game for us. Good luck to him.

As the initial post said 'best Caley game', not 'best ICT game', here's one for the old codgers (like me). It would be in late 50s at Cowdenbeath. At that time there were only two divisions in Scottish football and Cowdenbeath at the time were riding high at the top of Division 2, unbeaten in the league when we played them in the Scottish Cup. Caley won 5-3 and in fact were 5-1 up with a couple of minutes to go. The hero that day was a chap called Kinloch (Bobby, I think, a serviceman from Lossie or Kinloss)) with a hat trick. It was one of Caley's many great giant killing performances from those days.

I have just heard some plonker from the Ryder Cup committee trying to justify the decision not to let the public in tomorrow to watch the singles. It is going to be restricted only to people who have tickets for today. Not only that, ticket holders who can't go tomorrow can't even transfer their tickets to someone else. I for one would have gone tomorrow (I'm only a couple of hours away). The organisers, through their intransigence have missed a golden opportunity to have a full house tomorrow cheering on Europe to victory (hopefully). Instead they would rather it be a damp squib in front of only a few thousand supporters. Unbelievable!

I think the easier thing to do is to make the opponents' goal a yard wider and a foot higher, and ours a yard narrower and a foot lower! They'll destroy us in the 2nd half though. No, we swap them at half time when no one is looking!

I think the easier thing to do is to make the opponents' goal a yard wider and a foot higher, and ours a yard narrower and a foot lower!

Sincere condolances from me too. I had the pleasure of meeting the Coias at an away match many years ago. Haven't seen them on the forum for a long time, presumably Alison's illness being the reason. R.I.P.

Yes, I remember it well also. It was so foggy late in the game that I had real worries that my return flight to London would be cancelled. However, it did eventually take off, a bit late as I remember. Who would have thought that 9 months later we'd be talking about that being our last away defeat in a competitive match?

Yes, that was a cracking save near the end, which he does not seem to have had much credit for. Being a bit picky, he was 'nowhere' for the corner which was headed off our line (by Rooney?) in the first half. Nevertheless he has been outstanding for about a year now, and wouldn't let Scotland down if called upon.

How sweet was that? I can't believe how complimentary BBC Radio were to us. I think they must have confused us with the OF! I said last week after Celtic match that I was still optimistic for the season. This result confirms and enhances my optimism. Well done to Terry and the team

Here we are again, when all else fails, blame the ref. If you really thought he was shocking today, prepare yourself for a very long, disappointing season. There will be much worse to come. For my money, the ref today had a good game.

No complaints from me. Apart from the first 20 minutes they were pretty well 'all over us', and could have had 3 or 4. I thought our defence played really well and couldn't really fault any of them, with Esson and Gillet the pick. Apart from at the start we didn't dominate in midfield which meant that up front we didn't really feature. Only one half chance for Rooney in whole game. Nevertheless, I am not too discouraged. We will probably play poorer than that this season and win. Good to see Hayes play most of the match. I'm confident that he'll be a handful for most teams when 100% fit. Good too to see Eric feature pretty well at this level, especially in first half. Overall a 6+/10 from me, still leaving me with plenty optimism for the season.

Yes, just the type of big, strong player who will do well in SPL if he stays injury free. I wouldn't mind betting they got him for next to nothing too as he clearly hasn't been flavour of the month with Tony Pullis for quite some time.

I was wondering when you would mention this, as a supporter of a rival club in the city. Yes, Coppell walked out of Man City, I think, a few years ago after only a couple of weeks. I didn't really rate him at Reading even though he got them promotion (and subsequent relegation). Yet, he has years of managerial experience under his belt so I guess he must have something. I always felt he lacked a bit of charisma, and needed a 'bit more fire in his belly'. Don't think we'll see him back in football management in a hurry.

Wasn't he on the brink of resigning several months ago? I think things started to turn sour for him with the long drawn our Gareth Batty transfer saga, and now that Milner seems set to be off too was probably the final straw.

As ever, Butcher comes across well, and is positive and optimistic about the coming season. Quite an endorsement for Fraser and the Board too. Nice to hear after all the stick they get most of the time.

What utter nonsense!! I take it you've never seen Foran and Hayes playing before? These guys are very talented players. They are the types of player who will win matches for their team irrespective of their "match fitness". If TB leaves these two out for the Celtic game, citing lack of match fitness as a reason, then he's a bl0ody idiot. Foran took precisely 60 seconds today to blast the lack of match fitness theory right out the window. Jonny Hayes is also more than capable of doing the exact same thing. Despite your rudeness, Johnboy, I actually hope you are right and that Foran and Hayes can be match winners against Celtic. As it happens I saw them play live at least 5 or 6 times last season so I know they are talented players. Having said that I will still be surprised if they both do 90 minutes againast Celtic. Time will tell.

Sounds like a decent enough result against a big, strong side. We seem to miss the creativity of Hayes and Foran and it seems doubtful that they will be match fit enough to play 90 mins against Celtic. Hope they at least might be fit enough to make an impact as subs (like Foran did today). Otherwise it might be a 'hard day at the office'next Saturday

No harm in hoping though.

I assume RV were the stiffest opposition so far this pre season, so maybe this is not a bad result. I look forward to hearing how all our players did. Hope they all got through without further injuries.

Not often I get involved in these squabbles, but what has Esson done wrong to warrant not being our 1st choice goalkeeper? He was exceptional most of last season with umpteen clean sheets as we all know. I'm sure Tuffey is a fine keeper too, but promoting him as number 1 based on one performance for Partick against us seems OTT to me. Personally I'd wait till Esson blots his copybook before replacing him with Tuffey, and I sincerely hope, and expect, that it will be a long time before this is necessary.

It is very hard to equate FL2 to the Scottish leagues. I see one or two games a year, usually at my nearest club, Wycombe. They have just been relegated back to FL2 after a season in FL1. The clubs would not generally be SPL standard. But I'm sure many of them would hold their own in SL1. Generally the teams are fit and play hard. FL2 is extremely competitive. As can be seen from the Fleetwood Town result (remembering that Fleetwood have just been promoted to a league one below Barnet), they are no mugs. I feel confident that our new signing will fit in well and not take too long to adjust to SPL conditions.

Sounds like he used the same lawyer as SG.