AlexJones

Have to agree with that one. Probably a sentimental decision from Butcher to give his buddy one last big deal after all their years working together. Richie delivered for Butcher, and Butcher delivered for Richie. Seems fair enough, although maybe not such good business from the club's perspective! To be fair, he certainly didn't look 'past it' before his injury, so he might still come back into the team and make a significant contribution. Since this thread is about looking on the bright side - we've had a terrible start but we aren't isolated at the bottom. In fact, one win would have us knocking on the door of the top 6. We've also now seen enough of the SPL to discern that most of the other teams aren't any better than us.

Couldn't disagree more. He's put in a solid graft since he's come into the team, and shown flashes of quality. If he was 28 and had 400 games under his belt, fair enough. But we're talking about an inexperienced 20 year old who's barely had any first team football. Of course he's going to make mistakes. Give the lad a break. He's only going to get better.

Desperate stuff from Hibs. Sounds like Stubbs is in full panic mode already. To be fair, so are we, but at least we're not trying to sign John Daly.

Almost every team in the SPL is dirty. I actually thought Motherwell were worse than Hamilton. The leniency of the referee was the problem on Saturday. Teams are normally only as dirty as they're allowed to be. A couple of yellows for wreckless challenges / hoofing the ball away early doors would have nipped it in the bud. PS If you think Hamilton are bad, just wait till we play Hearts. As for McKinnon, I think he tends to stick out more because... how can I put this... the boy has a face that you don't tend to forget. He looks like he's just wandered off the set of 'the scheme'. One thing I noticed about him last season, he literally looks on the verge of tears for most of the match. His whole game seems to be based on sledging the other team and gurning to the referee. You can picture him banging his head off the dressing room door before the game trying to psyche himself up. Maybe that's why he looks the way he does.

First half we were the better team and probably should have had the game wrapped up. Second half we were absolutely dreadful. As against Motherwell and Celtic, the goals were of the soft variety. I'm all for the passing game, but there's a time and a place. Right now we have a makeshift team full of guys playing out of position. Why are we still trying to play like Barcelona? Almost every goal we've conceded recently has been self inflicted. Overplaying under pressure and turning over possession in a dangerous area. Today was no different. The team is completely unbalanced. Last year we outplayed Hamilton at their own physical game. They were outmuscled by Drapes and Vincent in the midfield battle. We're seriously missing those 2 guys in the middle. Tansey, Polworth and Vigurs are all too similar to play in the same team IMO. We need runners / battlers in there. Unsurprising then that our play was lethargic and slow, and Hamilton won almost every 50-50 and second ball in the second half (until Wedderburn and Horner were introduced). As others have said, it's worrying that Yogi doesn't appear to have a plan B. We've become far too predictable and one dimensional. It's looking like we're going to be battling against relegation this year. Desperate times require desperate measures. Sometimes you need to ditch idealism and go with pragmatism. Until our injury crisis abates, let's ease up on the Barcelona stuff. Especially around our own 18 yard box! When under pressure, hoof it up the park and scrap for second balls. If it's good enough for Van Gaal and Mourinho teams - it should be good enough for us!

Surprised Ricky Sbragia still has a job after the Jack Harper debacle.

Only a matter of time before Rory McAlister plays at a higher level. He's been knocking on the door for a while. Last nights display will be attracting a lot of attention. Falkirk are no mugs. We could have used him in the Scottish Cup Final! Would be great to have him back at Inverness.

Another midfielder. Yogi will shock the world with his revolutionary 0-10-0 formation.

Agree with this. Lopez seems to be the whipping boy at the minute, but for me Tansey has been the biggest passenger. His work rate is nowhere near good enough. Polworth and Horner have a fraction of his experience, but contributed far more than Tansey yesterday. For a guy who can strike a ball as well as anyone, his lack of goals and assists is disappointing. Vigurs created more off the bench than Tansey did in our last 2 home games. With the ability he has, you'd have to say he's massively underachieving.

Positives - Top class performance from the full backs. Williams looks every bit as good as Shinnie. - Owain Fon Williams was terrific again. - Polworth and Horner put in a great shift. - Vigurs looks promising. Hard to be too negative with a clean sheet and a point against a bogey team. We certainly rode our luck at the back at times but got away with it. The big downer has to be the lack of action in the final third for the first 85 minutes. Christie had an off night. Mutombo showed some decent touches, but no end product. Lopez looked isolated, and bereft of confidence. The bottom line is, we've scored 1 goal in 7 and a half hours of football. Not good enough.

An excellent piece of business IMO. One of the best set piece takers / passers of a football in the country. Can see him contributing plenty of goals and assists. How often do we fail to turn dominance into goals for lack of a composed 'final ball'. Vigurs could be the missing piece of the jigsaw in that respect. Also pretty excited to see how well he links up with other intelligent players like Christie and Vincent. These kind of guys tend to bring the best out of each other.

Unusual for a footballer to be so good at Trivial Pursuit.

We only lost to Astra because there wasn't enough competition for us domestically last season. Diddy teams like Celtic weren't clever enough to cope with our passing game as we cantered our way to the Scottish Cup. We should move to England IMO.

I'd take him just to wind up the County.

Makes you wonder. Where would last seasons ICT have finished in the Premiership?

Fon Williams Raven Devine Draper Horner Wederburn Tansey Polworth Christie Williams Mutombo Sit deep, pack the box, force Saints to break us down. Would take a 0-0. Instruct Tansey, Polworth and Williams to shoot on sight. All a threat from distance. Mutombo as lone striker instructed to take men on, go for glory, show what he can do.

Isn't there some kind of new rule that punishments for going into administration increase exponentially with each repeated occurrence? IIRC Dundee have 2 strikes, and if they were to go into administration a third time they would be sent to the bottom tier of the new pyramid system, which given their location north of the River Tay, would be the Highland league. Spending above our means isn't the answer, it's the equivalent of living large on a credit card and never ends well. We have a more than adequate squad IMO. Don't see the point in paying over the odds for a short term stop gap. Each player that returns from injury will be the equivalent of a new signing. It's too early to write any of our new recruits off. As others have stated, it took Mckay a few months to even break into the first team, then another season to start hitting the net regularly. G Shinnie was a fairly average bottom 6 left back for years before he became as good as he is now. Patience is key, and a hallmark of our progress. Some elements in our support have gotten drunk on our recent success and now act like OF / Aberdeen fans. We need to temper our expectations. Staying clear of the relegation dogfight is our first priority. If other clubs want to bankrupt themselves to reach the top 6, that's their prerogative. As we've seen with Rangers and Hearts recently, those who live above their means are destined to live beneath their means. And when that day comes, well run clubs like ICT and St Johnstone who didn't get involved in the self-destructive spending race are there to fill the void, as we've seen in the last 2 seasons.

Is this the worst injury crisis we've ever had?

The one I hear most is "get it up the park!"

Looked like 2 players going in hard for a 50-50, Warren getting there first, Pearson catching the man. The ball was there to be won. You could call Pearson wreckless, but don't think there was any malice in the challenge. If it is a broken leg then Warren is as hard as nails. He refused a stretcher, and initially looked like he wanted to play on, in stark contrast to the player he fouled in the first minute, who literally acted like he had a broken leg to get Warren booked, then immediately got up unscathed.

Desperately poor first half, decent second half. When you consider the players that have left the club, our current injury crisis, and that we lost our 2 first choice centre halves during the game - a narrow defeat isn't exactly a calamity. Some people's expectations have become delusional. Motherwell's goal was as soft as they come, a slack pass under no pressure in our own third. Rather like the first leg of the Astra game, conceding a soft goal early doors completely changes the dynamics of the game. From then on we didn't really look like scoring. This wasn't helped by having 3 holding midfielders on the park at the same time. Our shape improved when the impressive Mutombo replaced Wedderburn. But we still struggled to assert any kind of concerted pressure on Motherwell. There was a lack of movement in the final third, and all too often Lopez was left isolated. On the few occasions the ball reached him he didn't pose much of a threat. Positives from the game, Fon Williams was terrific. Looks like we've got a quality keeper on our hands. Mutombo, Horner and Polworth all improved the team when introduced.

Can any of them play up front?

Less a case of us underrating Astra, more a case of us vastly overrating the 'best league in the world'. Aye right Thierry.

Hard to judge until we get to see the others. A few teams have splashed the cash this summer, most notably Dundee (will they ever learn?) and County. So you would expect the league to be more competitive this year. But if Scottish football has taught us anything recently, it's that bigger budgets don't necessarily translate into a better team on the park, sometimes you end up with a squad of duds on lucrative contracts who you can't get rid of. Think Sevco, or Aberdeen under Craig Brown.

Yogi seems like quite a fair manager to me, if players come in and do well they keep their place. Wedderburn was very good over in Romania, so it would be harsh to drop him. Thinking a little outside the box, I wonder why big Drapes has been pigeon holed as a holding midfielder. I've always thought he did a lot of good work in the final third, and always poses an attacking threat. Now that we have another good holding midfielder, perhaps we could consider pushing Drapes further forward?