ictfcsince94

i would suspect, although i have no evidence whatsoever, that we have put certain players out on loan to free up a small part of the wage bill, to allow ourselves to stretch us a wee bit, so we can take in players, that everyone was screaming about.

Here's what i foresee over the next three games: KILMARNOCK PARTICK MOTHERWELL DUNDEE HAMILTON ROSS COUNTY INVERNESS V ABERDEEN 0 V HAMILTON 1 @ ABERDEEN 0 V RANGERS 0 @ PARTICK 1 V ST JOHNSTONE 1 @ HEARTS 0 @ ST JOHNSTONE 1 V HEARTS 0 @ CELTIC 0 @ MOTHERWELL 0 @ CELTIC 0 @ ABERDEEN 3 V RANGERS 1 V MOTHERWELL 3 @ DUNDEE 3 V DUNDEE 3 V PARTICK 0 V ABERDEEN 0 @ HEARTS 1 V CELTIC 0 Points Scored 4 4 3 0 1 5 1 New Total 29 27 27 24 22 29 19 Which just proves that whilst we maintain our gap to Hamilton, its conceivable that a couple of the others could start to stretch their legs...hopefully, these end up in more draws yet again. But it also proves that we MUST take as much as we can from these three stinking fixtures. i'm now off to put a 20p bet on the above actually happening! haha! not likely but an interesting exercise nonetheless.

that works for me.....

which is why he punishes them by dropping them for the next game. but he cant play the same team the next week, because we have a loan player who cant show against his parent club. he hooks the dodgy keeper, but cant play the replacement the following week, because he picks up yet another injury. everything has to change yet again to make way for THREE suspensions and a player who cant show against his parent club. the refusal to play doran and cole after having standout games confuses me, but off the top of my head thats all i can think? the back 5 at the start of the season was picking itself and has only really changed due to injuries and suspensions? the forwards - well he started with the fish, when he went off the boil he persisited with doombers, this appears that he wasnt changing things for the sake of it and actually persisting in the hope that things would gel. midfield. now, this is where i agree, there has been questionable choices. here, he's clearly picking the best players, and not neccesarily the best group/formation. whilst its arguable that tansey draper and vigurs are some of our best technical players, they dont seem to work well together in any formation they have been tried in this year. Polworth actually frustrates me more the Vigurs, and has serioulsy underperfomed this season. doran hasnt, for some reason, managed to re-establish himself after injury but has showed real sparks when he IS played. and i have questioned the manager, regularly. but the blame has to be equally leveled on the players here, and not just Vigurs the evil baddy that he is! with the exception of probably Tremarco ALL have consistently been inconsistent this season and have made life extremely difficult for Richie. Its the players that have to pull him out of the mire here!

yes, perspective required: motherwell - 5-0 hapoel beer sheeva - 5-2 aberdeen - 4-1 rangers - 5-1 kilmarnock - 6-1 man city 3-3 ross cunty - 4-0 man city - 1-1 partick - 4-1 hearts - 4-0 st Johnstone - 5-2 losing 1-0 or 6-0, its a cup game, it disnae really matter, and better teams than us, on any given day, will be on the end of a whipping from the rampant Bhoys. Would it have been nice to keep it respectable, yes, does it change anything, no. I wonder if this humping might in fact galvanise the team as opposed to sending it into the meltdown that everyone fears. The rest of the bottom 7 all face Sellic again in the league, with 4 of them having to go to parkhead. i expect to see some scorelines akin to this one during that time.

Well, our February looks fantastic and just what we need to turn our season around! An away tie to a regrouping Sharts, a home tie against an ever imploding Sevco and a home tie against the other of the ugly sisters, who appear to be quite good! whilst there is some debate as to what points may be required to avoid relegation, the main target has to be to hold ground over the rest of the month? 3 points needs to be the target from these. We got a draw against Sharts already, and we need to go some way to making amends for our early season drubbing. Both home and away against the new team, we were really unlucky and deserved to come away with something. Now that they are going through their usual soap opera nonsense, perhaps we can kick them when they are down. And we'll, Celtic at home...that needs to be not embarrassing! That's all I'm saying about that! its a horrible few games, but let's look at Hamilton's month: @ Patrick @ Celtic v Aberdeen if I was a Hamilton fan, I too, would be looking at 3, possibly 4 points from these. So, we need to keep pace with Hamilton, that's all we can ask for this month. It's the games against the other 6 teams around us that are the real '6 pointers', and those are what we must focus on? Other teams results have actually gone in our favour for most of the season so far, with the teams around us generally drawing and getting beaten by the top 5, this needs to continue, and we need to pick up some much needed wins. RF has said it's not about playing good football it's about grinding out results...well, that attitude needs to start on Saturday, bin the Septic game, they are a different class, but use it as a learning experience and try to ensure that feeling doesn't return. Avoiding relegation - easy!!! ps Admin - can the phrase Happy Clapper be added to the swear word filter?

Who says Richie doesn't know his best 11?!?! Continually hampered by injuries and sickness and suspensions and players 'hiding'!

This!

on a serious note though, i'm assuming this injection of cash will make the service more sustainable and possibly allow for an expansion of what the media team can do?

now, that there is some top quality acting!!

getting 16/1 on Bet365

Have we over-compensated after the JD debacle? Are we launching the 17/18 kit now?! Haha!

Got bored after the first sentence...perhaps slightly off topic, no?

No surprises that we're looking at strengthening our Defensive corps. Josh probably out for the rest of the season after a knee op...

What's the space like on the bus for the sellic game?

Somehow, I don't think we're gonna sell out our allocation...unless of course we were allocated 100....

I really don't like this "happy clapper" pish! Like it's a bad thing to be supportive of the team you support. Like I'm not supposed to be hopeful of MY team doing well. That I should be ridiculed for trying to be positive when 'the chips are down'?! whats the feckin point of being a FAN, a SUPPORTER if you can't be supportive of your team and the players/management?! The world's a bag o ***** the now anyway, why do I want to come on a forum for my beloved ICT and read or post miserable doom and gloom pish when that's all that's going on everywhere else anyway. feck me, there's some on here that would find criticism if we were currently challenging the tic for the league feckin title!! Angry and pissed off and critical when they play bad-aye! Do I have to be an angry troll all the time-naw! But if yer naw an angry troll you're a happy clapper and this is somehow a bad thing?

Just to add another tit-bit into the discussion; Fisher played in the Development match today...which confirms he is in fact, fit.

just sayin....

Oh well, the turn around in form has taken a bit of a dent. Aberdeen 3-0 ICT...Miles Storey scoring one of them. How happy he must be that he decided to go to Aberdeen and continue his career improvement.

the issue is, the players we have brought in to 'rebuild' and the ones we are building around could all depart.... Likely departures at the end of season - Tansey, Meekings, Fisher, King, Mckay, Mcnaughton, Cole, McCart (and if we get relegated Anier, Brad Mckay,) and possibly Jason Brown and Cammy Mackay.... Doesn't leave a very inspiring, long term rebuilding look at the team - Warren, Draper, Vigurs, Raven. Boden. Only Doran and Tremarco inspire any kind of long-term promise, however if we are relegated then i would imagine we would be trying to off-load that pair due to their probable higher than everyone else wage demands. Polly, Jake and Ebbe possibly the yoof of the future. All in all, on the face of it, not much of a rebuild to date, more of a make do and mend. However I praise what is being done in the background with regards recruitment going forward, so their may be some gems to come in the future. If relegated, maybe we have to look to youth? why not, cheaper wage bills if nothing else!

Whilst the club are currently shaking their head at the lunacy of JH sitting on his erse while still paying his wages. You place Yogi up on a pedestal, but it appears to have been his decision to engineer his departure. Anyway, you make a moot point. It's irrelevant. We are where we are. and I'll bet you were amongst the boo-ers too!

I'm superfan no.2. Other than that, no role in the club. all I'm doing is posting snippets of what I've heard, what I've conjectured from social media postings, coupled with my own opinions. Note my use of vocabulary- "think" "allegedly" for example.... lots of people post on here from "sources within the club" to the extent that they'd have you believe someone in a privileged position within the club is spilling a lot of p&c information. I don't do that, if that's what you're getting at!

the thing about stats is that they can be interpreted in many ways, and the same stats can be used to support two opposing arguments. i'm not going to refer to the stats and ppg numbers above as they are irrelevant. in none of the seasons above was the league so tight and competative. whilst, yes, we are in a relegation battle, so are 6 other teams! 6 points separate the bottom 7 teams. and yes, 10th spot is the 'holy grail' but really, the only truly SAFE position is the final berth in the top 6. I'm sure there will be a 6-way relegation playoff over the last 5 games of the season, and what we have to do is ensure we are with the pack at that point. ideally over the next three games which we 'shouldnt' get anything, we need to gain ground on hamilton, then we're all gravy! dont pay too much attention to previous years. its this year that counts. we can. and we will prevail!! edit - knowing our luck we'll do something stupid like take 4 points from the next three home games then lose to partick

another victim of King Billy's return? and a move away from the 'hoof it to the target man' approach of play. i also think he's one of the players that has been allegedly 'lost' in the dressing room....don't like to believe those types of rumours at all though