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Are you worried ? - I feckin am


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Yes, I realise that, but even without the constant stream of injuries, Butcher never settles on a consistent plan or formation.

He plays 4-2-3-1 almost every weeks towards the end of the season he went with a 4-3-3 but other than that he rarely changes from that.

Hogg, a.shinnie, and Aaron doran all were injured for a huge part of the season and all wouldve been playing every week if they were fit. No coincidence with doran or shinnie in the side we win more than we lose.

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4-2-3-1 with a forward half the size of most central defenders, who we continually pump high balls up to.

I didn't say it worked or not. You said he didn't settle on a formation.

Personally I think the 4-3-3 works better that the 4-2-3-1 but this season we havnt had our wide players fit all season so we very rarely seen it.

My main criticism of butcher and I have few is his lack of a plan b. when our backs against the wall we struggle to adapt and by the time butcher makes the substitutes needed he's to late the games lost.

This season is the only time he hasn't been able to settle on a "best 11" and play them over a run of games. Because of injuries. In years gone by he's had that luxury, he's used it and he's got success from it.

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And, of course, none of the chopping and changing had anything to do with injuries and suspensions which made it impossible for us to put out a settled team!!!!

Yes, I realise that, but even without the constant stream of injuries, Butcher never settles on a consistent plan or formation.

He plays 4-2-3-1 almost every weeks towards the end of the season he went with a 4-3-3 but other than that he rarely changes from that.

Hogg, a.shinnie, and Aaron doran all were injured for a huge part of the season and all wouldve been playing every week if they were fit. No coincidence with doran or shinnie in the side we win more than we lose.

I have just realised that CaleyD must write the post match scripts for TB :wink: - If you read my post that really should not have affected the usage of any of the players I referred to - BUT - it did effect the formation or should have. My take on that is TB's coaching head has a defined system for ICT and the manner in which he would wish us to play football. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, in fact it is part and parcel of the coaching manual. The problem was / is that TB did not have the players to slot in to his favoured system - losing Hayes,Doran and Shinnie dented that particularly. He tried Ross as a stopgap which didnt work and for some reason he perservered with Tade and Sutherland, even moving on to an intricate interchange plan between two of the least tactical minded players in the team. Gnapke was a woeful attempt to plug the gap and I was surprised that Chippendale or even Winnall didnt get more of a run. Again why did we take those two on loan to warm the feckin bench ? The bottom line in the coaching manual is that you sometimes have to change your favoured system to a system that suits the personnel. TB was too pig headed to do that.

And as I am on ma soapbox I may as well add Gillet in to the mix. Personally I feel that he has "sweeper" written in large ink letters across his forehead. But he was chopped and changed - probably to allow Tokely, Williams and Golobart to play and NOT for tactical reasons (and why have two centre halves on loan who clearly were very similar and could not be paired together ?). Anybody who has played as a defender will know that your positioning at left back is far different to a central defender (Tokely struggled fer months and it finished off Tin Tin). If I was Gillet I would be mightily fecked off and I will be surprised if he resigns.

What I would love to know is what all these players feel is their best position ?!!

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Here's what's wrong.. all other managers have mostly found local or localish tallent now out management are uncovering out of favour gems that have no real loyalty or feelings for up north n go as soon as offered, which is fair enough as they have family's n connections down England way..... That's what worries me.

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I am a little worried about the future for ICT but I think that stems from the shambles that is the SPL at the moment. I don’t think I would be as worried if there weren’t issues over future TV money and league restructuring

I’m not sure I buy into this point of view that we need local players in the team to ensure passion and loyalty. These are characteristics of a person that are down to the individual rather than where he is from.

Given the choice between having a successful team with a team made up of not local players or a poor team full of local players I know which one most of us would choose. I think our current spell of bad form is not down to the fact we dont have a lot of local players in the team but more down to the fact our budget and geography dictates we can only buy players of a certain quality

IMO I would be great if we could fill our team with local talented youngsters and do well in the SPL but I doubt we will ever see this. Football is a primarily a business and loyalty to local players or indeed long serving players is becoming a thing of the past. Not saying I like it but its becoming part and parcel of the game

Using ICT as an example I think the days of us filling a team with numerous local players are long gone. I think more often than not in the coming years we will be filling teams with a mix of Scottish players from the central belt and English youngsters released from bigger clubs. The only exception to this will be a few young players ( similar to the likes Nick Ross, Gavin Morrison etc) on the fringes of the squad and maybe the odd local player doing well becoming a first team mainstay (similar to Munro)

To look at the theory that many other teams/managers use predominantly local players in their teams I'm not sure I buy into this either. Ross County currently have only three players born relatively local to Dingwall (Michael Fraser - Drumnadrochit, Grant Munro - Inverness and Alec Cooper - Inverness) hardly bristling with local talent! St Johnstone have only 2 players in their first team who were born in Perth in Kevin Moon and Stevie May. Aberdeen seem to recruit strongly in Aberdeen with 9 locally born players in their first team but have been largely disappointing in the last 5 seasons if not more. Dundee United have 2 players born in Dundee with a 3rd joining them this summer in Michael Gardyne. The old firm have hardly been well know for filling their first teams with local talent and Hearts and Hibs teams are more often than not filled with foreign players.

I think the idea that players are only loyal to a club if they are born in the city they play is fast becoming a myth. Money is often the only thing that players play for nowadays. I think the days when players like Giggs and Scholes play their entire careers at one club are going to be a thing of the past. Loyalty these days is a very rare thing and more often than not money speaks louder than anything

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Not too many moons ago, in the days when we'd sign players from County or Elgin or Huntly there were many people coming on here and decrying our scouting network because we didn't look to the lower English leagues or the Irish leagues for players.

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Not too many moons ago, in the days when we'd sign players from County or Elgin or Huntly there were many people coming on here and decrying our scouting network because we didn't look to the lower English leagues or the Irish leagues for players.

Totally agree. We don't get results on the pitch then people will just look for things to blame.

It doesn't matter where the players come from if they were performing to their best no one would be complaining.

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What I was alluding to is that many of the individuals who our "scouting network" have unearthed are no better, often inferior, in comparison with the likes of Ross and Morrison who are then shunted on to the bench at best whilst we provide a playground" to individuals who are merely using us as a stopgap or an addition to their CV's.

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Signing young players from England is ok with me if they are better than Ross, Morrison, Sutherland, shinnie etc but when we take Stratford, eagle, winnall, gnakpa, Chippendale, blumstein and the rest who are not even close to as good it makes you wonder why. I wonder who it is who picks out these players and I'd like to know if butcher saw these guys play at their respective clubs and thought yeah he's good! I'll have him!

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What I would wish to stress is that I would prefer to watch a team with a sprinkling of yoof in it, preferably local yoof, mixed in with the journeymen and the experience - that is why I would have felt that Esson, Foran AND Tokely were essentials to keep on board. We could have / should have blooded quite a few last season instead of all the dodgy loanees. In my book the likes of Morrison, Ross and Sutherland (centre feckin forward) should be "shoe-ins" for next season and with the three aforementioned, the ones on contracts or resigning we have the core squad and then we look at where the deficits are - centre half, holding midfielder and goalscorer and then utilise the journeyman and loanee market.

What an excellent post! Don't always agree with you IHE but completely with you there.

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I thought we would have at least been able to keep hold of Tansey and Tade, but now with Hayes of to Aberdeen I am worried now. I see bottom six teams consolidating and strengthening their squad, whilst ICT are still waiting for the sign up dead line to pass. I hope TB and MM have some targets in mind that want to come and play up here. The first derby of the season will indicate how successful the closed season has been. As a result of recent out flow, I will not be re newing my season ticket but paying as I go, just incase it is as dire as this season has been.

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I started this thread and added to it in a serious voicing of concern. As Kencar stresses - if you were not worried at the end of this season you must be now. All we need now is for the King rat to jump ship and move in to a position in the Govan Shipbuilding business.

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If the squad isn't significantly improved I can see relegation next season .

I fear the same. Butcher doesnt have a great history in the transfer market (baring a couple of gems) so its going to be an interesting summer trying to sign quality with a reduced budget

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I couldn't agree more. Its been obvious for a while that we would lose key players this summer and yet what has TB done? Offered pathetic deals to those we'd like to keep and decimated our youth set up by only keeping on one of the U19s. By now we should already have a mixture of experience and local youth tied down to contracts for next season, ready to be added to with the odd 'pressure free' signing throughout the summer to bolster the squad. Instead what we have is a decimated squad and a manager with a track record of panic buying duds from the lower english leagues. This summer more than ever he'll be under pressure to add numbers fast and that cant be a healthy position to be entering the transfer market.

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Does anyone seriously believe we have a squad nearly as good or likely to be as good as the one that was relegated from the SPL. Were our finances so dramatically different back then. I feel that if we go down this time we will stay down as we wont have the strength of squad to get back up.

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Lets save all the talk of relegation until march-may 2013, IF it looks like that is what is on the cards for us.

We have a whole season of the SPL ahead of us. Im fairly confident that there will be at least one team worse than us. ICT isnt the only team struggling financially etc....there are about another 11 teams in the same boat, admittedly, some worse than others...BUtT...in fact...its probably the most level playing field theres been in the SPL for many many years.

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Reading the offerings on here one wonders if some fans would not have been a lot happier had we been relegated!!

For Gods sake we are still in the SPL - we do not know the make up of our team for the new season so why assume the worst??

It would appear that highland negativity is alive and kicking in the ICT fans.

"Every SPl team has signed world beaters except US" - "We have the only manager who cannot manage, we can do a better job" - "Our Board are a shower of muppets, they have no idea how to run a football club" - "No renewal of MY season ticket in case we do not play well"

ICT fans, I salute you, you are the best in the SPL - not!!!

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