Will Next Season Be Butcher's Last?

[Renegade]

As it says, will next season be Butcher's last in charge of ICT?

Renegade says yes.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Renegade

[DALNEIGHCALEY]

Lets hope so .

[jaggy]

This season was his team with his players and his tactics. If this season is anything to go by, I hope it will be his last.

[CaleyD]

Hope not.

[alternative maryhill]

Haven't voted, but I think there's a fair chance it will be. He's bound to be in charge going into the season unless he chooses to leave for some reason, but if we're really struggling, say, three months in, then the board will have a decision to make. At the moment I can't see any team that is going to be weaker than us next season. Of course he could add a few new faces, find a settled system that works, get lucky with fitness and have us safe by Christmas, but there have been far more negatives than positives this season.

[Joe DiMaggio]

What a stupid poll.

What if he merges a decent team together for next season then all the people on his back will be loving him again. I don't remember people caliing for him to go when we were 4th around Christmas last season. What do you expect from the team anyway. It is probably a certainty in a 12 team league that we will get relegated within the next 5 years I'd say. At the moment Butcher is doing fine. Freshen things up for next season on the field is needed though.

[+Fraz]

He's here till next season at least, may as well see what he does in the close season and how it pans out up till Christmas. We can't afford to buy him out and I'd be quite surprised if he walked. He has made bad decisions at the end of last season and was ill prepared at the beginning of this one, there never seemed to be a plan and you got the impression he was just winging it at times. Other things like dropping some players at the drop of a hat while others could be convicted of mass murder and still get a start; playing folk out of position; bizarre substitutions; the same repeated after match comments, failure to learn from his mistakes (and admit his own errors) etc etc. Injuries have played a big part to be fair, hopefully we won't have to go through a season with as many again.

He's far from perfect but he's what we have for the foreseeable future so I guess we have to try and hope for the best! What else is there?

[jaggy]

Even if we do survive next season, Butcher has demonstrated through inept tactics and a questionable management style that he cannot take the club forward. Next season will be more of a struggle than this one if Buthcher continues with his current set up.

[starchief]

It might well be his last season, where poor defending and desperately bad finishing means we're towards the bottom of the table. Then again, it could be like last year, if Hogg gets fit, less injuries and he can find a striker. In which case, it could be like the year before, where we are heavily pushing for top six.

It's way too early to be making these predictions. Two good seasons out of three means he deserves a chance. It's impossible to say what next season will bring.

[jaggy]

You can't judge anyone on future performances, your only as good as your last games. This is a performance based industry, and ICT,s perfoances have not been good enough. Thankfully other clubs have been equally poor.

[lukemackay]

What a stupid poll.

What if he merges a decent team together for next season then all the people on his back will be loving him again. I don't remember people caliing for him to go when we were 4th around Christmas last season. What do you expect from the team anyway. It is probably a certainty in a 12 team league that we will get relegated within the next 5 years I'd say. At the moment Butcher is doing fine. Freshen things up for next season on the field is needed though.

Agreed

Can someone tell me why whenever we play below par why butchers head is called for? I'm bewildered

[ICTPaisley]

What a stupid poll.

What if he merges a decent team together for next season then all the people on his back will be loving him again. I don't remember people caliing for him to go when we were 4th around Christmas last season. What do you expect from the team anyway. It is probably a certainty in a 12 team league that we will get relegated within the next 5 years I'd say. At the moment Butcher is doing fine. Freshen things up for next season on the field is needed though.

My problem with butcher is that yes he was 4th around Christmas, so why did he then get rid of the players that got him there and replace them with mediocre loanees.

[dougal]

Without doubt Butcher has taken the club back the way ,whether some of us like it or not we are getting very close to the days when Brewster got his marching orders

Think it's very unfair on some fans to label all the blame on Terry though what about Malpas? What does this guy actually do or bring to the club?

It won't happen but Terry should issue a public apology to the fans via the press or on here

1 Apologise for the amount of mediocre or pish journeymen that he persists in taking to ICT, ok there has been a couple of exceptions but the majority are and were complete rubbish

2 Apologise for the style of play or the lack of tactics deployed this season, root one football pumping the ball high up the pitch is getting us no-where ok he made a career out of it but football has changed a lot since the 1980's

3 Apologise to Grant Munro, to treat one of our own so despicably was a disgrace, think what this has done to the number of Invernessian youngsters growing up dreaming to play full time football, if anything it pushes them more towards the County radar

4 Apologise for not dropping Foran when this should have happened before Xmas

Even the happy clappers are deafening in their silence, whether we like it or not we are favourite for the drop next season as there wont be a Dunfermline to take the heat of us

One things for certain Hibs will be much improved anyway but even more so if they win the Scottish cup,it could be argued County already have a better side than us but they will also improve so that probably leaves us fighting it out in a relegation dogfight with St Mirren

Should Terry and Mo get another season like I think they will they have one hell of a job to get us out of this rut thet got themselves into

Dougal

[Sorted]

Dougal makes many valid points which are hard to disagree with unless you are one of the 'see no evil, hear no evil' brigade.

Only points you miss Dougal are:

Tell us the truth about MacKay Steven. Did you really offer him a contract and he refused (despite agreeing to play for Airdrie for pennies weeks later) or are you that poor a judge of a player that you didn't fancy him?

Ian Vigurs, remember him? He's coming back to haunt us. What were you thinking when you let him go?

[starchief]

Weeks? GMS was out injured for the best part of six months. So, would you have taken on a player that had a history of injuries, that was given a trial but failed to finish the match, that was going to be injured for a lengthy part of the following season, with no guarantee of recovering long-term? A player that couldn't get accepted by any team in the SPL or SFL1? A player that turned down a pay-as-you-play deal becasue he quite simply wouldn't be playing enough?

Would you honestly have taken that type of player on a long-term deal?

On hindsight, a 5 year deal for GMS would have been a great investment but to have given that would have been madness. He hadn't shown anything to prove that he deserved that.

dougal is very easy to disagree with, given that it's pretty clear through his posts that he doesn't support ICT.

And we managed to almost break into the top six without GMS or Vigurs.

Here's the question: given that Butcher 'bounced back' at the first time of asking, then achieved a finish that was probably a lot higher than most of us believed, should he be sacked after one mediocre season or given a chance to improve next season?

He deserves that chance.

[Sorted]

Why is challenging his decision making and asking for him to explain decisions deemed to be calling for his head?

I am not a happy clapper and expect value from those funded by the club. Nothing more, nothing less.

CAN YOU SHOW ME WHERE GMS WAS OFFERED A CONTRACT OF ANY SORTS?

And yes, with the information I have from Liverpool regarding his time there, his attitude, his injury (singular not plural) and ability I would have taken a risk. I am not connected like our management team but it didn't take too much to find all this out. Why couldn't he?

I actually know the answer to my question already. He didn't offer him a deal because he believe JH is a better player and will stay at the club. I believe he is misguided in both viewpoints. We will be talking about GMS long after JH has disappeared to non league English football again (league 2 if he's lucky).

Edited April 22, 2012 by Sorted

[dougal]

Good additional points Sorted

I'm already feeling pretty uneasy regarding the the first highland derby, I can just imagine how pumped up County will be and especially Munro and Vigurs

Guarantee these two will score against us next season as they tear us a new one

We need a mass clear out this summer and all money available should be ploughed in to secure seasoned pros not untried diddies that no-one has heard of

There is also no point thinking youth will come through at ICT we don't have the infrastructure in place

Butcher needs to change direction NOW or we will be seeing the shoes off brigade in action again long before Xmas

Dougal

[Sorted]

Deleted repeat post

Edited April 22, 2012 by Sorted

[jaggy]

Whether ICT fans want him here or not, TB and MM have a contract for another season. The comments on this thread are split between best case scenario next season equalling our best of the rest status, or propping up the table for the majority of the season before being relegated again. Our inconsistent season so far suggests it may be the later. Everyone is right to be concerned.

[old caley girl]

Not calling for his head yet but I do think he needs to take responsibilty for this seasons debacle. It has been wretched and I for one cant wait for it to end. The ones that should maybe be ost concerned are the board because the shouts of "Im not renewing my season ticket to watch this rubbish" are becoming deafening and fro folk who have stuck by this club in good and bad times.

[Renegade]

Interesting some people's views towards GMS and trying to think of every reason under the sun to justify Butcher's choice not to sign, conveniently ignoring the fact that at the start of this season Butcher signed Owain Tudur Jones on supposedly massive wages knowing full well that the guy was really just an injury machine. This would be all fine and well if he was Lionel Messi Mark II, but going by yesterday's performance and some of his others recently, I'm even sure he's worth a new deal!

Edited April 22, 2012 by Renegade

[tm4tj]

What is for sure, is that playing like this and lack of entertainment we have suffered recently will not make a great advert for next season ticket sales. I have also heard dozens of people questioning their sanity over the season ticket problem.

Shopping or football

Shopping or football

Shopping

[dougal]

dougal is very easy to disagree with, given that it's pretty clear through his posts that he doesn't support ICT.

Yawwwn

Let's be honest here and this is not exclusively your problem you and the rest of the happy clappers are fantasists not realists like myself

I've been called a County fan, an Orc fan etc etc on numerous occasions but it's like water of a ducks back I am ICT although seriously disgruntled and I like many others will be limiting my games next season as the football served up is Pish

ICT are presently not going in the right direction only a bampot would argue otherwise

Dougal

[Jay_7]

Can someone tell me why whenever we play below par why butchers head is called for? I'm bewildered

Stand back everyone, I'll handle this one.

Ummm... He signed the absolute dross that aren't fit to pull on the shirt?? He's responsible for the tactics from which he attempts to get the best out of the crap he's signed? He absolutely will not, nor will he ever accept blame for his part in the worst season in recent memory? (To clarify, as harrowing as it was to be relegated, this season is much, much worse than that one.)

Quite why you feel the need to defend the guilty party in all of this is bewildering.

[+DoofersDad]

Can someone tell me why whenever we play below par why butchers head is called for? I'm bewildered

Stand back everyone, I'll handle this one.

Ummm... He signed the absolute dross that aren't fit to pull on the shirt?? He's responsible for the tactics from which he attempts to get the best out of the crap he's signed? He absolutely will not, nor will he ever accept blame for his part in the worst season in recent memory? (To clarify, as harrowing as it was to be relegated, this season is much, much worse than that one.)

Quite why you feel the need to defend the guilty party in all of this is bewildering.

I was listening to TB's post match interview just now and was actually suprised by how often he said that he must take the blame. It was almost a season's worth of accepting the responsibility. He was also saying that whilst he takes responsibility he is pretty bewildered by the lack of cutting edge in the final third because he sees day in and day out in training what the players are capable of but they don't produce it on a match day.

He made the point that in a lot of games we have had good possession but have lost games because we have not been able to create and take enough clear cut chances and because of errors at the back which have been punished. That is probably true but it is his responsibility to sort it. There appears to be the first public recognition of that but perhaps a lack of knowing how to.

Personally I feel that many on here are being harsh on the players. In general they may be playing poorly but I don't think that means they are poor players. I would be more worried if we simply weren't getting the possession. To me the big thing that is lacking is confidence. At the moment all the players seem to be on edge and as a result they either snatch at opportunities or lack the confidence to shoot. And they are on edge at the back because they know if they make a mistake the lack of goals up front means it is likely to be an expensive one.

Things seem dire at the moment but If we could just find that spark to bring back the confidence then the goals will come players would be less on edge and we would find the football flowed a bit more. The key questions for me are whether it is TB's management style and tactics that are contributing to the lack of confidence in the first place and is he capable of finding the spark that is needed?