Matchday Thread Inverness CT -V- Dundee

[ictfcsince94]

30 minutes ago, wynthank15 said:

.Were I JH I would be shaking my head at the sheer lunacy of it.

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! 

[+DoofersDad]

I think supporters of Hughes tend to overstate the problems caused by injuries last season.  This is probably both because he complained about it so much and because the previous cup winning year was so remarkably injury free in comparison.  If you look at our key defenders, Warren was out early in the season with a leg break but came back much sooner than I expected and was ever present after that.  Meekings had a period out (as he has this year) but the big difference between this year and last is that this year we have McNaughton out for most of the season whereas last season Danny Devine had the most starts of any of our outfield players.  Devine actually played very well to the extent that Hughes preferred him in the centre to Meekings.  On Warren's return, Hughes therefore had options between Meekings and Raven at right back and also between Tremarco and Williams on the left.  Those options look a good deal stronger than is available to Foran just now.

Elsewhere in the side OFW was provided as cover for Brill's injury and then kept his place when Brill returned to fitness.  Foran himself was always listed as long term injured but frankly he was never going to return as anything more than a fringe player.  The joker in the pack was Roberts who seemed to go from one injury to the next without kicking a ball.  He looked as though he might have been a decent signing but we never saw enough of him to find out.  The big miss was Doran who has also missed quite a chunk of this season as well. Others who were injured were the likes of Fisher, Sho-Silva, & Ferguson who were hardly going to be game changers had they been fit.

Hughes had the central midfield options of Draper, Tansey, Polworth and Vigurs available to him virtually all season along with Storey and Willams.  

On balance therefore, I don't think there is really much difference in the overall injury situation between last year and this. Had Hughes still been here, his record suggests he would not have signed such attack minded players as King, Cole, Anier Mulraney and Mckay.  We may be bottom but I am still looking forward to the rest of the season.  I wasn't saying that this time last year.

[Scarlet Pimple]

Doofers Dad.

I have to say that I agree with you that Richie has certainly tried to fill in the blanks and put a team together that would be hard working, attack minded and competitive. Let's give him his due--he has worked at it. But inserting players from other clubs at short notice is a bit of a hit and miss prospect and it takes time for a really cohesive team to emerge.

Let's look at this season as his rebuilding process and remember that he needs time  because Rome and ICT were not built in a day.

[ictfcsince94]

4 hours ago, Scarlet Pimple said:

Let's look at this season as his rebuilding process and remember that he needs time  because Rome and ICT were not built in a day.

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!

[RiG]

Three must win games and not a single performance in any of them that suggested that team had a must win attitude. We were poor against Partick, shocking against Hamilton and marginally better against Dundee with the second half showing a degree of fight but there is little point putting that effort in when you are already two goals down. Fact is we needed that second half performance as a minimum last Saturday and for the two games that followed.

We now find ourselves with some exceptionally difficult pre split games to face up to, hope we can get something from them and also that teams above us don't pull away too much. Partick, Hamilton and Dundee were games were we could have bought ourselves some valuable points to put us ahead of other sides going into our tough run.

On the positive side I thought Billy King had his best game for us all season. He's often had one good half and one subdued half but I thought he really impressed. He took a fair leathering off the Dundee players. Tremarco was also good and Mckay was a class above. Yes both his penalties were very weak but his hold up play was superb and he did well to make something out of those thumping long balls we insist on the playing.

An absolutely awful crowd. Take out the Dundee fans and how many home supporters were there? 2,200 maybe? Looked like you could have put everyone in the North Stand. A real shame that at a time when the club needs all the support it can get people aren't getting along to games to get behind the team.

Going off topic for a second...

As for John Hughes I doubt he cares to be honest. He stopped caring for ICT when he started slagging off the club in the public domain. He worked his ticket very well and comes out of it all looking like he has been harshly treated when he fact he was thoroughly unprofessional in airing dirty laundry in public (as was KC).

You could even argue that part of our downturn was sown by Hughes himself. Under Butcher we lost good players but tended to bring new ones in to replace them. Yes sometimes it was very hit and miss but for the most part the recruitment, however it worked, under Butcher typically replaced players we lost.

This stopped under Hughes. When the likes of Billy Mckay left it took months for a replacement to be found. The wrong areas of the team were strengthened with bang average players whilst other parts (attack and defence) were ignored. The 'recycling' of players ground to a halt under Hughes as he filled the team with midfielders and it become incredibly unbalanced.

His first full season with us was fantastic and he proved a lot of doubters, including myself, wrong however his second full season was typical Hughes as he has been with other clubs. Steadfastly refusing to adapt his style when he had been found out, poor recruitment, publicly whoring our best player to Celtic, high fiving Celtic fans and ignoring ICT fans at games, mind numbingly dull football especially at home, demands for more money then a public falling out with the board and some players (much like he had done at Falkirk by all accounts), the list goes on. His time was up and he knew it.

By the end there was no longer any 'promising set up'. The stability that we had seen from ICT over a number of years was slowly ebbing away and we now find ourselves in an incredible mess. I am not saying Hughes is solely to blame. Kenny Cameron and the board should shoulder a fair chunk of responsibility as well as Foran. As mentioned on other threads Foran has also demonstrated poor tactical awareness and bizarre team selections throughout this season which have contributed to where we now find ourselves.

At the end of the day I don't believe it is one person who is responsible for this mess. It's a collective effort but there's no point fawning over Hughes or Butcher or anyone else. They've gone. Deal with it. What matters now is we get behind the team and support them to get over the line and stay in this league and hopefully kick on from there.

Edited February 7, 2017 by RiG

[wynthank15]

Have a look at our injury list after we played Astra, half a team was missing yet JH still got results. I'm not surprised he was pushing for more funds we had lost Shinnie and Watkins and he wanted the momentum he had built to continue, how can you blame someone for having that ambition, I don't buy the line "working your ticket" I don't believe Hughes wanted to leave the club but the board thought they could pull a master stroke and sack Hughes, what a joke that turned out to be. The home display against Astra minus our two best players was the most controlled match I have seen from an ICT team and I've been watching them since Patterson's time, only a goalkeeping mistake and the loss of Watkins cost us that night. We have thrown away his legacy, the team is a shambles, as proven by two points from Partick, Hamilton and Dundee two of those at home.You can soften reality any way you like but the bottom line is this shambles of a season lies at the board's door,not JH's and not RF's. As I've already said, we have thrown away two and a half years of work which was instilled into the team system that gave them an element of control in games even when we had average players/reserves filling the jerseys, what a waste.

[12th Man]

Just when the team gets a bit of a spark the doom and gloom merchants appear. 

Onwards and upwards eh.

[TopSix]

16 minutes ago, 12th Man said:

Just when the team gets a bit of a spark the doom and gloom merchants appear. 

Onwards and upwards eh.

[Renegade]

26 minutes ago, TopSix said:

It must be part of the reason why CTO doesn't seem anywhere near as busy as it used to be.  Anything critical posted, no-matter how accurate is immediately shot down by the Together We Believe... mob.  Sad!

[12th Man]

23 minutes ago, Renegade said:

It must be part of the reason why CTO doesn't seem anywhere near as busy as it used to be.  Anything critical posted, no-matter how accurate is immediately shot down by the Together We Believe... mob.  Sad!

[12th Man]

Renegade do you really want to be posting things like no one is speaking to player X and he's now going else where as no one likes him.

 

 

[Renegade]

So we shouldn't post rumours at all then? Should we just keep quiet when he hear or think anything that doesn't fit with the happy clapper rhetoric? 

You're free to ignore if you want but that doesn't make it go away or mean isn't true. 

Edited February 7, 2017 by Renegade

[TopSix]

1 hour ago, Renegade said:

It must be part of the reason why CTO doesn't seem anywhere near as busy as it used to be.  Anything critical posted, no-matter how accurate is immediately shot down by the Together We Believe... mob.  Sad!

[izzy]

15 hours ago, Renegade said:

It must be part of the reason why CTO doesn't seem anywhere near as busy as it used to be.  Anything critical posted, no-matter how accurate is immediately shot down by the Together We Believe... mob.  Sad!

"Nail on head "comes to mind Renegade .Well said !!!

Edited February 8, 2017 by izzy
Changed word

[tm4tj]

[forresjags]

17 hours ago, wynthank15 said:

Have a look at our injury list after we played Astra, half a team was missing yet JH still got results. I'm not surprised he was pushing for more funds we had lost Shinnie and Watkins and he wanted the momentum he had built to continue, how can you blame someone for having that ambition, I don't buy the line "working your ticket" I don't believe Hughes wanted to leave the club but the board thought they could pull a master stroke and sack Hughes, what a joke that turned out to be. The home display against Astra minus our two best players was the most controlled match I have seen from an ICT team and I've been watching them since Patterson's time, only a goalkeeping mistake and the loss of Watkins cost us that night. We have thrown away his legacy, the team is a shambles, as proven by two points from Partick, Hamilton and Dundee two of those at home.You can soften reality any way you like but the bottom line is this shambles of a season lies at the board's door,not JH's and not RF's. As I've already said, we have thrown away two and a half years of work which was instilled into the team system that gave them an element of control in games even when we had average players/reserves filling the jerseys, what a waste.

As much as we all want to see the positives and move out of the the bottom 2, what is quoted above  is true. To date this has been a shambles and have to agree this is down to the Chairman and the board who knew that there were issues with JH yet did nothing in the way of lining up a suitable replacement. Appointing RF was nothing other than a knee jerk reaction, it was never based on anything he had on his CV, it was the easiest and most convenient option. RF conveniently got them out of a gigantic  hole agreeing to take on the job.

JH seems to come out of this pretty badly, but what about the board who decided that he must go because he questioned their ambition to move the club forward.

Richie Foran still has my support and I really hope for his own sanity that we can turn the corner, and finish 10th.  

       

[+DoofersDad]

The reality is success requires one to be objective so that one can understand what is good and what is poor.  You can then build on the former and address the latter.  It seems to me that there are a number of posters who are reluctant to acknowledge either what is good or what is poor about the team and are intolerant of those who express views different from their own.  Seeing as we are bottom of the table it must be obvious to even the happiest of happy clappers that all is not perfect, but equally, that does not mean that everything is wrong.  Surely there is much to talk about and folk should be free to express their views and expect rational responses in reply rather than being shot down without one.  

[Sir C the 3rd]

The fact is, as I said elsewhere, the club made an absolute shambles of JH leaving. They were offered a compensation package for Hughes to leave and become Dundee United manager. They refused it and then agreed a new contract with JH for 2 and a half years. 

Regardless of engineering exits and all the rest of it, the club let him go 6 months later. Utterly ridiculous scenario. Basically glossed over by everyone as bizarrely most fans wanted him out and that we offered Raven a new contract as soon as Hughes was out the door. How much is real money has that all cost?

compensation from united, down the drain.

paying him to leave, more money down the drain

An absolute travesty when you think of the very small margins the club operates on.

i know the club balance the books and take pride in that. I can't help thinking by being a bit less naive we could have a wee bit more than just around breaking even. £500,000 for Christie when you see Coulibaly leaving Killie for near a million. Players leaving Hamilton for in the millions.

God knows what will happen if we go down.

[+bughtmaster]

I agree with you to some extent D D, certainly where tolerance/intolerance comes into it, however when blatant rumour is posted in an inappropriate thread, rumour which appears to be deliberately posted to  offend, sensationalise or for self-glorification it becomes objectionable and should go into rumour mill.

Freedom to express, yes, if it is factual, an opinion or even theoretical.

Back on topic or at least one that is running in tandem.

I have in the past been shot down many times for my support for John Hughes and I still believe had he had full support from a more forward looking and adventurous

Board we would  have been challenging  for top spot and going into Europe again. However it is Richie's predicament now that we have all to help resolve by giving the squad our  backing.

 

 

[CaleyD]

6 minutes ago, bughtmaster said:

I agree with you to some extent D D, certainly where tolerance/intolerance comes into it, however when blatant rumour is posted in an inappropriate thread, rumour which appears to be deliberately posted to  offend, sensationalise or for self-glorification it becomes objectionable and should go into rumour mill.

Freedom to express, yes, if it is factual, an opinion or even theoretical.

Back on topic or at least one that is running in tandem.

I have in the past been shot down many times for my support for John Hughes and I still believe had he had full support from a more forward looking and adventurous

Board we would  have been challenging  for top spot and going into Europe again. However it is Richie's predicament now that we have all to help resolve by giving the squad our  backing.

 

 

I gave this a green dot and a red dot.

[+bughtmaster]

Dots...............very expressive.      

[ictfcsince94]

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? 

 

[IBM]

32 minutes ago, ictfcsince94 said:

 

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.

 

Very true 

[Scarlet Pimple]

Bring on the positive and discard the negative. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with happy clapping which is a term designed by the inexperienced  to imply that those who choose to stay on the positive side of the fence  are either old fogies or delusional.

It's the difference between the  thoughts of a 17 year old as opposed to those of a seventy year old with much life experience who has learnt, almost too late perhaps, that life is short....and you can't go back no matter what.

If you waste your time wallowing in doom and gloom and that negative situation and thon negative Manager etc., etc., your chances of moving onward and upward, or inspiring others  to face up to and overcome tough odds, fades away. And ultimately there is no stimulation nor enjoyment in it for either you or them. 

But think--if there was no black to contrast events how would you be able to see the bright shining light? And it's the glimmer of hope that keeps us going isn't it? Not the certainty of death or despair. If that bright light closes down then your life is finished.

And as one very intuitive spiritual entity once advised me ..."if you come up against people who don't think the same way as you do then ...move on ". I followed his recommendation and he was right. Sometimes  people find themselves in a situation where they really don't know where to turn.

Everyone needs support at some time in their life. A  word of encouragement here and a little bit of praise there  can make all the difference to a person torn between the acts of quitting and/or winning.

[+jagster]

Nice words SP