Jump to content

PerfICT

03: Full Members
  • Posts

    1,556
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    27

Everything posted by PerfICT

  1. Yes, and with Hartlepool relegated and ICT doomed, that's all of his last 3 teams on their way down. Not that he can take the blame for all of these outcomes, but not a good season for Yogi's most recent teams.
  2. Finally we're in must win territory (+ hope for a County win in midweek). We're just not good enough to deserve to stay up.
  3. Draper for Cole....the guy really has not got a clue.
  4. .....yes, take off all your pacey players and replace with Vigurs and Polworth. We now have 4 cental midfielders playing, no width, no pace. That'll work!
  5. Vigurs on for Mulraney.....back to the highly ineffectual Draper/Tansey/Vigurs midfield and no pace....
  6. Yup - familiar story: Play well for first 15, fail to take chances. Concede with opposition's first attack and tjen lose all shape and composure. The rest of the story tends to be: Concede a second and then RF loses the plot and goes for tombola team selections in the hope of striking it lucky. Let's hope he gets lucky early or it'll be another tanking.
  7. Just heard the latest shambles of an interview with RF. Apparently, Saturday's win was "just at the right time". No it wasn't - the right time was 3 months or more ago and then we wouldn't be staring down the barrel. Sure, it gives a glimmer of hope, was in the nick of time or kept us alive, but it was not at just the right time.
  8. Yes, CB, the young players and parents are told the statistics by the SFA at U11 at the only session of sports science they get. And yes, the 1in 20 statistic is for those kids already selected for development squads - hardly the odds on which to build a career. As for your other point: Don't get me started! Why oh why is there not a system between ICT, Ross County, Highland League clubs and Elgin City (for example) whereby boys discarded by one club can be trialed at others further down the pyramid. The best example is Clach and ICT: The coaching staff compete with each other for children at the age of 8 or so. No formal system for exchange of players recruited at the wrong level for ability. I realise the hatred runs deep, but not having the boys' best interests at heart is inexcusable. So many of those dropped give up football altogether or just play street league. Not that there's a problem with street league - great fun and well organised, but how much talent is lost to pro and semi-pro football on account of poor handling by clubs?
  9. Please don't remind me of that day. My son was mascot for the Falkirk match! Arranged weeks in advance, the hope was that it would be a great last day of the season party and everybody would be celebrating. To this day, I remeber listening to that late goal going in at Killie to ensure that it was all going to be on the last match....with the young lad as our "lucky" mascot. Never again - it was excruciating. Tokely , Higdon, Barrowman (miss late on) indelibly etched in my memory . It's OK folks, he's not signed up to be mascot for the Motherwell game this year....
  10. don't dismiss the goal difference, particularly with respect to Motherwell, Caman. At the moment, we are 4 goals worse off than Motherwell. For goal difference to become important in the final match, well need to have at least one result better than Motherwell - likely scenario (though not certain, of course) is that the GD will then be down to 3. If we need to win the game against Motherwell to go level on points, a 2 goal margin would do it. If we've already got level on points with Motherwell, I'd wager that we'd either be level on goal difference (maybe goals scored as well!!) or possibly even better than theirs. As for what the "best" result for us is - it depends how greedy you want to get. If you're happy with a shot at 11th and taking our chances in the play-off, than a win for Hamilton (heavy, if possible) is definitely best. If you still hold onto the fantasy that 10th is possible, then a draw has to be the best result. Isn't it ironic that our fate might lie as much in our own hands as in County's? We really need them to whip Hamilton the night before we're away at Dundee. Killie could also do us a favour against Motherwell that night. We'll know what we have to do at dundee before we kick off....
  11. Exactly, IHE. Whatever we're doing football-wise as a nation is just not good enough. Yes, I meant to mention the training facilities, which are rank. Ross County definitely did much better out of the "Highland Football Academy" deal than we did - they got indoor facilities (which they have now badged as theirs!), while we got a first generation astro pitch at Charleston which needs to be replaced. In fairness to County, they have enhanced their facilities beyond the indoor astro with an excellent outdooor astro pitch.... we haven't. The other thing I meant to add is that Charlie Christie did not bring Danny MacDonald in - he was brought in by the Board at a level above Charlie to oversee the youth development + the community team. I doubt Charlie was too pleased about the appointment tbh!
  12. I think there needs to be a reality check around youth development. The SFA's estimate for boys "making it" through youth development across Scotland is about 5%. So 19 of every 20 kids that enter will be turfed; on average only one from each year group will come through. Looking back over the past few years, ICT are probably just about on that average. The problem is nationwide, not just here. It is very often not the best player at 11 who makes it, more of which later. Speaking as a parent with a young player in one of the squads, here are my observations: ICT's youth development is under-resourced compared to the elite clubs. For those who don't know, teams with youth development are split into "elite" and "the rest" at U12 level and above, based on level of coaching badges amongst coaches. ICT don't make it into the elite group, so stop playing the likes of Celtic, Dundee United, Aberdeen, Hibs etc. Instead, it's Alloa, Airdrie, County, Elgin etc. The quality is not great - you really noticed the difference when Celtic came to town in the U11s - they had top quality coaches, sport scientists, video analysis. That on top of better raw material through 10x the catchment made a huge difference. They didn't always win, but they usually played much better football. As for the ICT experience of coaching: There's a mixed bag. All try their very best, some are not much more than unpaid volunteers. The SFA's mantra below U17 is to concentrate on development not results. This is probably my only criticism of the system here: Results are everything. This encourages classic 70s football of long ball from the back, flick on and stab home. No touches for 8/11 players, but celebrated instead of criticised. All the coaching during the week centres on passing and possession seems to be abandoned at the weekend. The other classic error is to focus on one or 2 "stars" at this age and ignore the rest. Picking a winner at 12 on the basis of talent alone is bound to fail in almost all cases. Football is so much more than raw talent: Discipline, fitness, attitude are all justt as important and you don't know who'll shine in those areas until later. Equally, the big guy who's shaving at 10 might be the most powerful then, but will be caught up with at 17 - don't put all your eggs in that basket. Ryan Christie is an excellent example of the small guy who didn't really shine in the younger years, but turned out to have the unique mixture necessary. Select too early and you might just miss the real star. So, the youth set up is what it is. Under-invested, yes, but the question is whether more money would really pull through more than the average 1/year of lads who have all the ingredients. The direction of travel from the SFA seems to be to reduce the number of development squads and focusing investment. If that happens, far fewer kids will be given the opportunity, selection will be far too early and the Ryan Christies of this world will slip through the net. ICT will almost certainly not have a youth development squad any more, which would be tragic.
  13. Utterly amazing to think that even if we lose next week, we're still in the game because Ham and Mot play each other and can't both win! We only have to be within 3 points of Mot come the last day of the season and it's all down to a one-off, pistols at dawn affair. I have no idea how, but this could easily go to the wire, whereas I thought we were well and truly buried after last week. Don't you just love and hate football.
  14. Dare to replace Draper with Vigurs and.....
  15. Well, there's a surprise - replace Vigurs with Draper in the midfield, put some pace out wide and the victory comes. We'd all seen that in November, but Richie persevered with a failing formula. Lesson learned for next game? That late goal could yet bite us...but only if we can beat Dundee next week. Ach well, we're still just about alive. How odd it feels to have won!
  16. ...and this could be the squad for next season after the summer exodus.
  17. Just heard Richie on the radio. He clearly has no intention of resigning. Shame, because I really admired him as a player and I thought he had the interests of the club at heart, but he's decided to lead us into the abyss. Will somebody somewhere take the decision out of his hands and then also accept responsibility for this horror show?
  18. What are you on about, IHE - you're talking in riddles mon! Are you saying that you've had a tip off that there is major investment in the wings from said former Disney CEO?! Why does it have to wait until relegation is sealed? Sounds like a fairytale to me...we're not some Mickey Mouse club, you know.
  19. So here we are 4 days after an excruciating and catastrophic defeat that put all that went before it in the dark and Foran has still not had the courage to hold his hands up and resign. That would be the respectful thing to do - he might even leave with a morsel of respect, although maybe he's too late even for that. In the meantime, his employers have evaporated from the planet. Too scared or financially incapable of doing anything to save the club. So, Foran is really never going to resign or to be sacked. Every day, I wake up hoping that brave decisions might have been made. It seems I am as delusional as the club and management. Sad.
  20. Nothing to back up my hunch - it is just that. Time will tell. Even if the budget was based on 8th, we're stuffed!
  21. some very informative posts from cif73 here, confirming my deepest fears. What this means is a fire sale of players at the end of the season (or more accurately, expensive players will be asked to trigger clauses or to leave "by mutual consent" (i.e. For free) to keep the club afloat financially. With many of the U20s punted too, we're going to have to put together a team from nothing and on the cheap. Virtually impossible without a decent scouting system. Added to this, there will need to be a contingency in place for the likely scenario of not returning to the prem at the first attempt - that has to be part-time football to match other teams with a support as small as ours. Did the club sleep-walk into this? Was there so much arrogance at board and management level that we'd finish in the top six? It seems so! I really think Foran's insistence that we were going to finish in the top 6, even when we all could see that avoiding relegation was the real issue, was because he had convinced the board at the outset that we'd finish in the top 6. All the projections will have been worked out on that assumption, which means we'll be hundreds of thousands short for next year before poor ST sales are taken into account. Utterly deluded, the whole lot of them and the football club is set to have some very dark days.
  22. Agree with much of bdu98196's comments, although I think Mulraney has another year with us? For me, it's: Fon Williams or Esson (no odds - both capable of at least one crazy error per game) Raven (might be able to convince to stay) Laing (could be convinced to stay?) Warren (poor season but is on our books for next year) McNaughton (experienced and might be convinced to stay) Draper (dip in form recently, but can't be happy with being dropped for Vigurs) Tansey (swansong) Mulraney (fairly sure has another year) Fisher (deserves every minute he gets) King (nobody else for this position - Cole doesn't deserve it for his crazy red card) Mckay (on a hiding to nothing with poor service) Foran's box of chocolate's selection could be: Fon Williams McNaughton (left for right swap worked well at County) McCart Laing Warren (3 centre back success story) Mckay (for his stunning display against Kilmarnock) King (must be better on the right than the left) Vigurs (capt - chosen for work ethic) Cole (for the obligatory red card for petulence) Boden Anier (done nothing since arrival) Edit: how could I have forgotten Anier for Foran's pick?? The sad thing is that this really could happen.
  23. Agree that CC would be better than Foran, but so would my dog. I think the problem with the concept is that it is a look back into the past. I have no doubt that he'd improve performances and results, but we are already relegated in all but name, so let's be a bit more forward looking. DoF would be an option, but would CC be able to hold his tongue if he didn't like the manager's approach? Look at the flack Levein got for interfering with team decisions. It's an option, but another sticking plaster.
  24. Sorry guys, but I said at the end of the season and again in November (below) that we should have sold Tansey when there was money available, because he would go for free. I was glad he stayed after Aberdeen's approach in Jan last year, but the writing was on the wall from that moment and we should have cashed in. I wasn't alone.
  25. ...and the benefits of a change in manager just being proved at Dundee. Change the manager and get the chance of a "bounce" at least for a couple of games. Oh, no, not at ICT - we know better and will go for the ha'penny option of bringing in another assistant on a handshake: that'll work. The good news is that we've been put out of our misery quickly. Nothing worse than lingering hope.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. : Terms of Use : Guidelines : Privacy Policy