Northern_jaggie

Welsh and Wotherspoon in the middle of the park is a duo to be excited about.

Brilliant if true

I like the idea of a manager with contacts and a history of no nonsense in his playing career. We are severely lacking in gritty players and hopefully Dunc can be transformative for those softies we have on the books and bring out a new side to their game. We are in a dogfight at the bottom, make no mistake. It’s a gamble of an appointment, a big gamble, but one I’m quite positive about.

The thing that stood out in the club statement about Dodds sacking was “this seasons results have not reflected the quality we believe we have in the building” The issue I have surrounds why the board think the playing staff have quality, when they are absolutely not the judge of playing quality as they are by definition incompetent to make such a judgement. It implies the upper echelons are meddling with a manager’s affairs and that leaves me with a very sour taste indeed about the governance of our club.

Great how the pods can be embedded in posts 👏

Kel being in the back room staff hasn’t got us to a top league position so how much value is the guy adding really? Say £40k/year since 2018 = £200k…if Marius Niculae was £3.8k/wk back in the day that would buy us the equivalent of a Romanian International for a year in very very rough terms…have we had that much value from Kel since 2018? The answer is no. All the cash has to be focussed on people that play on the park wherever possible imo, you can’t train turds when they are just turds so why employ so many turd recruiters and turd trainers 🤷‍♂️

Not that I’m suggesting it…but here are Scottish managers on transfermarkt.co.uk…

I agree that whoever gave Dodds a two year contract must leave ICT. Letting Dodds depart after the cup final was obvious for all concerned and would have been the best for the man when compared to both his and our situation now. I was pleased to hear Charlie will be involved in the interim, I’d expect an improvement with him in the dressing room.

This is not good craic, not good craic at all.

The problem: insufficient playing budget to win the league, year after year. The (potential) solution: save up over a number of seasons and use the cash to recruit a squad and management team genuinely capable of winning the league, allocated over 1 season (conditional contracts to players upon winning the league). At the idea’s core is a fundamentally positive ideology: a common goal with realistic timescales to unite the fan base and the board. Nothing unites better than common purpose and goodness knows we all need a “light at the end of the tunnel”! Think Gretna style spending for a single season to get us to the SPFL - it worked for them and history tells us we can sustain ourselves when in the top league. There is the possibility of a fan offering to create such an investment. Detail, board structure + voting rights aside for now. The club adds a modest surcharge to walk up tickets and season ticket cash is sent to the fund, perhaps cup run money, strip money from a special strip etc. Types of people such as Directors and investors who have sunk large amounts of cash over the years would be incentivised to buy shares to contribute alongside the club and fans, in the same season. Annual transparent reporting on fund value with the trigger on using the fund sitting with the fans (somehow). Just imagine we had thought of this say 5 (heck even 10) years ago and we were sitting on a significant sum of money ringfenced right now. A fan body fires the starting gun that next year is our investment year; • a good number of high quality players sign (quality manager is either retained or signed) • we retain quality players that usually sign for others • big hype about the season ahead leads to bumper season ticket sales • in-season walk up sales increased • most importantly, the club and fan base are pulling together and ICT feels extremely positive like it did in the “believe” promotion campaign. We are promoted. Fans and directors are repaid their investment from SPFL revenue. The obvious barrier to this I feel is that the fund needs to be separate to the club as it grows, what with ICT’s ongoing financial problems. Once the fund is spent with the club, that should attract some form of share detail (tbc!). Good to know your thoughts. p.s. Sunny Day Fund is a cheesy, horrible name for a project but you get the idea that it is the exact opposite of a rainy day fund. Someone can come up with a much better name 🙃

I’ll go back on what I said based on how poorly we have performed thus far. Christmas is too late to take action. Dundee Utd at home looks like D-Day.

92 employees? Wow. Only 11 on the park at one time, if you get the football right then everything gets better. I’ve moved from Inverness recently so very little chance to go to games now. I bought the replica kit for my wee one and went to a couple of games this season before moving, but the saddest thing personally for me was not feeling like I would miss ICT games as things are. I think the club should engage directly and regularly with fans on this forum. Dynamic dialogue not static statements. I dearly miss the online streaming service, a problem not just ICT related which I appreciate. I filled out the fans survey. If we are in peril of relegation near Christmas I’d join a protest, but I’ll likely sit tight if we are mid table or above.

I’d made the trip down from Orkney for the game tonight. I was sat beside either friends or family of Lewis and when he was injured it really was the most gutting time I’ve watched football hearing the despair from his personal supporters. I thought his studs caught the turf causing the knee to turn. He looked great in the early stages and I can only wish him a speedy recovery. All the best Lewis. I thought Shaw was really superb tonight, he lit up the wing and delivered probably 80% of crosses into a dangerous area. He had the main stand on their feet when skinning his man in a way I’ve not seen since the days of Johnny Hayes or Barry Robson and I thought he deserved to be on the winning side. With players like him we have hope of a good season. I noticed that within seconds of the first goal for us Dodds and Wilson pulled Samuels to come on for Longstaff which was clearly a pre planned move. It was the wrong move, despite him looking a bit tired. Why change it after coming back from two down? Nuts. The root cause of the successful Airdrie attack was a severe lack of protection from the midfield to our defence, the 4-4-2 formation left us wide open I felt. Dodds stuck with the formation for most of the game and the like-for-like changes just serve to make sure the fresh players beat the men that the subbed didn’t…it doesn’t address the strategical issue that was plain to see. I couldn’t fault the players, it was the way they were played.

The big positive here is that a monetary figure was mentioned as to Robbos benefit and that can be weighed against his salary, for me that’s enough evidence to suggest the club are looking at the cost/benefit here and hence there shouldn’t be questions raised again until next seasons figures are known. Anyone defaming someone who is adding genuine benefit is a poor thing to do, so how about giving the guy a break until there are real concerns?

How can C*unty and Livingston be premiership teams but we are a Championship team? Have some ambition.

Who is a free agent at the moment and who could we sign? A long shot but I see David Wotherspoon has been released by St J. He was injury prone but if we let a few crocs go then a fully fit Wotherspoon could be a brilliant addition to the midfield with Welsh and possibly Allardice if he signs.

The supporters deserve and need unabbreviated accounts, too much is shady in what has been published. Smearing the actualities with club statements and an AGM simply won’t cut it.

Tremendously said

I miss FruitBat. People like FruitBat are like mayflies on this forum though. They emerge, have a wonderful and short forum life, then they die. We will remember them.

Ross Tokely worthy of consideration I think, as youth team coach he will know who has up and coming potential. He has been promoted twice with us so knows what it takes. He fits the Inverness mould. His comments during streamed games were hard to disagree with and I think he’d command respect in the dressing room. The challenge for Ross would be how he recruits the squad as I can’t imagine his contacts are expansive, that said Robbo has been recruited for that so if his contribution on that front is genuine and yields results then perhaps that’s the solution.

It’s very worrying that the white knight prospect of the park and ride depends on a project that does not have a commercial route to market. The original planning application for Red John was a joke and ILI don’t actually build these development sites, they sell them. If this is what the club are pinning future business plans to, things are worse than I thought. Gardiner’s focus is purely on profit which is ok, provided the money makes its way into quality playing staff and a better fan experience. The podcast clearly highlights that the fan experience will be sacrificed in favour of profit (supporters bar etc), the fans are not solely there to provide profit to the club - this attitude will further detriment the support base. I listened to the podcast twice, well done for pulling it together. I’d have pushed Gardiner harder on the Ridgers question, he should have the capacity to answer that. The stand roof - ICT are not actually doing anything about the roof, only sourcing a quote. That’s a yellow pages effort and frankly a waste of time. Give the lads a section in the North Stand and get the Stewards to wind their neck in. There had to be a question about non-playing staff wages as a proportion to playing staff wages, asked in the context of other club setups. Maybe next time. I can’t understand why local producers wouldn’t engage more, even on a trial basis. The club must be framing it wrong.

Knee jerk reaction… Someone had to say it!! Let’s hope his appointment helps solve the monumental injury crisis at our club.

Was this a team of Invernessians? When was the last time we managed that anyone?

Fantastic professionalism from Mark in the interview and I’m beaming with pride with the result from the young team even though we lost. It felt like the management team and club officials left the lads to hang out out to dry today. Imagine advising fans not to travel and support??! Given we are losing regularly with an expensive management team and a squad of crocks I’d rather turn up and support Mark and the young lads than those that played last week at Dundee.

Billy Dodds contract ends in June next year I believe, so I can’t see us paying him off now. Adding another wage whilst he and the back room staff are still there is just sticky all round. The reality is we will see out this season as is and caulk it up as a loss because we simply won’t win promotion. When we are safe from relegation and close to the end of the season, the fans should be given the dignity of news that his contract will not be renewed. For the first time in years I’m not nervous about losing players through contract lapse or signing, bar a few maybe. The young lads, Harper and MacGregor would be the first priority to keep for me. I’d be for chopping the crock list as we can’t have passengers any more.