PerfICT

Agreed. For all that honesty is a great virtue, it can also land you in hot water. There is absolutely no need for this to have been put in the public domain. As for the issue itself - decisions about fitness to play are made with medical/physio input. In the end, though, only the player himself knows whether he is willing to risk playing with a niggle - it isn't always the wisest thing to do. Draper playing on at Killie in October probably cost him a few weeks on the treatment table, so this is a double-edged sword Yogi!

I agree with DD. For me, DU are too far detached to really get back on course and I suspect it will be Hamilton that will end up in 11th, but there is no way we are safe. It is critical that we pick up points against those teams around us, which is why losing on Saturday was such a blow. I reckon 35 points will avoid relegation and ~40 will avoid 11th, so there'as still plenty of work to do. Equally, 4th is easily do-able too: the joys of a competitive league!

A real opportunity missed. Didn't fancy the starting line up and the subs were uninspiring. Could have been above County and looking up to St J: Instead still looking over our shoulders at the play-off spot.

There's no point in Stokes coming here unless he really wants to come and I don't get that impression from what's been speculated in the press. I would prefer it, however, if he didn't go to any of our Premiership rivals!

For anybody who is interested, here's the relationship between goals and possession. Statisticians will get all upset about the fact that "goals" is discontinuous data and therefore doesn't suit this kind of analysis......but I still think it shows something interesting! I wasn't expecting any kind of pattern from such a small data set. Red symbols are losses, green are wins and orange are draws.

Totally agree. The possession stats can be bewildering sometimes, so I'd take them with a pinch of salt. Another stat I meant to include - approximately half our goals have been conceded in the last 10 minutes or in injury time. This has not escaped the notice of the supporters, players or management. Knowing the problem is one thing, identifying the cause and rectifying it is quite another!

We're just past the halfway stage of the season, so what are our thoughts on the shape of it so far? Here are some statistics to be bored by or to chew over to help the discussion along: The league stats show a certain amount of symmetry: P21 W7 D7 L7: 28 points. Goals For: 30; Goals Against 31 Given our terrible start, I'm delighted with the current league position and am fairly optimistic for the remainder of the season, if we can keep everybody fit. We could, however, do with Meekings and Doran back! Some other notable statistics - not many surprises! We have the lowest number of shots/game (8.56), the 3rd lowest shots on target (3.48), but the 3rd best conversion rate (goals/shots on target; 39.73%). This might reflect our reluctance to shoot unless it is a clear-cut opportunity! We also have the lowest corner count (won) which might be linked to the lack of shots on goal. Our average home crowd is 3,959 (260 better than the average for whole of last season) - 10th in league above Hamilton and St J and within 100 of PT and Killie. This suggests that our attendance is holding steady, but sadly there isn't much evidence of a bounce from last year's heroics. Our average possession is just less than 50% (49.9%) and there is a very clear inverse relationship between goals scored and possession in each game: for every 10% more possession we have, we score ~1 less goal. In 5/7 of the games we have won, we have had less possession than the opposition and in 5/7 of those that we have lost, we have had more possession. This might sound crazy and could just be a trick of the numbers, but I don’t think so on this occasion. Perhaps it indicates that we really struggle to break down organised teams that allow us to play in front of them (St Johnstone at home and Stirling Albion in the cup are good examples). Possession, particularly in the middle or defensive third does not win games and can often contribute to losing them. Cups: Going out of any cup is disappointing, no more so than when it is at the hands of County. Likewise, our performance in the Scottish Cup was not great against Stirling Albion, but at least we have a chance to put that record straight next week. It would be great to have another cup run and I see no reason why we can't this season. Good buys, goodbyes and star performers: Clearly, the best signing of the season was Miles Storey and it is fantastic that he's with us until the end of the season. Some of the other signings have not been so great - Lopez in particular. The most improved player has been Liam Polworth by a distance. It is also great to have Gary Warren back, but it is a real shame that we haven't yet managed to reunite Warren and Meekings. Draper, Tansey and Vincent are starting to show the consistency that we're used to from them. It was sad to say goodbye to Ryan Christie who was a star for much of the early season - I wish him well for the future. Thoughts?

Would agree with most of that, but no Raven or Williams? My guess is that JH won't sign either Raven or Doran, although I'd like to see both retained.

well (literally), it is no surprise that we will be away agaaaaiiiin if we manage to get past Stirling! Rangers at home agaaaain too.

Yes, Deano - that would be the team for me.

An interesting decision for Stokes if it really is in his hands. My guess is that he wouldn't "lower himself" to play for a diddy team (Scottish Cup Champions), preferring instead to go to the bigger team - Hibs in the Championship. I see this as a win-win: If he comes here, he's coming to get game time and to stick it up Deila; if he doesn't he's as shallow as I think he is and Inverness is not for him. Let's see what he does....

At the risk of sounding like the one-man James Vincent fan-club, did we not miss his energy and movement yesterday?! For all their strong points, a midfield of Drapes, Wedderburn, Polworth, Tansey, Vigurs just lacks energy for me. You can't have only one player (Storey) making runs - too easy to shut down.

Yes, I get the mutual consent bit - hence the "harder to shift". If we have to pay him off, we may as well keep him here. That's right about Mutombo - I had forgotten that he's here until the end of the season. That doesn't leave much room for manoeuvre.

If Roberts is fit and Doran perhaps in the wings(?) I agree that we should terminate loans for Mutombo and Sho Silva. Lopez will be tougher to shift: Contract terminated by mutual consent would be good. That might free up a little cash to bolster the squad, but I fear that we might lose some of the higher earners too. Dave the Rave for example.....hope not!

The impression from Hughes' comment is that the budget has been reduced - unsurprising, given the slight fall in attendances this season. Tricky decisions ahead perhaps? All very well "offloading", but there won't be any takers for the ones we'd want to offload, which means losing some of the higher earners (who we need to keep). Again - I hate the Jan window!

Yes, I think all the development squads (u11-17) play on the grass pitches at Charleston. U11s and 12s used to play their 7-a-side matches on Charleston Astro, but SFA regs have made them move to the grass pitches too. Development squads train at a mixture of Charleston Astro, Highland footie Academy (indoor), Millburn Astro, IRA (indoor) and Milton of Leys Primary School astro. Indoor facilities at this time of year are a must - multiple training cancellations due to poor weather.

Only a few weeks ago, I would have taken staying up as a good end to this season, but after a few decent results I reckon we can start looking up rather than down. Top 6 would be an excellent outcome after such a shoddy start. However, I don't think St J and Hearts are out of reach, so who knows? For me, the most important thing is succession planning. Our budget is small, so keeping guys that like it here, rather than trying to hook new talent seems the better option. Fon Williams, Raven, Tremarco, Draper, Williams, Polworth, Devine, Vincent and Storey would be a start. Haven't seen him yet, but Roberts could be one to look at too. I wonder where Doran is at? Cup? Would be great to have another decent run. Retaining the Scottish Cup would be a historic achievement....one step at a time, starting with Stirling!

Yup: 45 min on Celtic, Aberdeen and the numpties in the Chumpionship and 10 min on the diddies.

PS - the Charleston Astro is now outdated and can't even be used for development squad matches without an expensive SFA inspection. Millburn Academy, Milton of Leys PS and (soon) IRA are much more attractive options.

Indoor facilities are used by some of the development squads every week. HOWEVER, ICT certainly got the short straw wrt the Highland Football Academy: The indoor facilities are what we really need and it's crazy having to send squads on a 30 mile round trip to get access to them. Added to this, RC clearly see these facilities as "theirs" (reference MacGregor's Sportscene piece this year). Indoor facilities are desperately needed in Inverness.

I think it's what JV does when we don't have the ball that is impressive. He chased everything down all game yesterday, forcing rushed passes and Fox to miss-kick clearances - this helps to keep the pressure on. When we do have the ball, he's always making intelligent runs to leave holes for Storey and the midfield to exploit. When he has the ball at his feet he wins a good number of free kicks. What he probably lacks is finishing....but let's not forget that he did score the most famous goal in our history!

Not sure we deserved to be ahead at half time, but I'll take it! Wedderburn was having a shocker and a good move to sub him for Vigurs. 2nd half was reasonably comfortable and Storey ran Boyd ragged. Vincent was absolutely everywhere and didn't give there defence any rest. In the end, we could have got another couple, but was more delighted with the CLEAN SHEET! Now, we need to do the business off the park: Storey (promising signs there), Draper, Polworth, Vincent, Williams, Fon Williams all signed up for another season or two please. I get the feeling that Rave won't be top of Hughes' list, but he makes us look so much more solid. I quite like Tremarco too. Well done lads: a happy New Year!

Would have preferred a comfy 2-0 win, clean sheet etc, but will certainly settle for a 4-3 win in a thriller! What a strike from Polworth. Please sign him up quickly!

oh yes! Our find of the season scores again! LP turning out to be a star!

LP has proved to one of the very few bright sparks over the last few weeks. I agree that we need to learn from previous mistakes and make sure that we either retain him for his best footballing years or we get value for him in the market.