diegomarahenry

Hopefully by at least the first home league game, the majority of these types of restrictions will have been lifted. Even some kind of compromise to allow people in to standing areas like season ticket only for track and trace, maybe timed entry and wearing masks, no food kiosks open. (Have it delivered to where you are?) Allocated standing/sitting area.

Or do you think McCall knew how to handle fans expectations? Knew what to say and when to say it to excite fans at the right time and calm them down at others? How PR works and who ultimately pays his wage ? Who has a massive say on team confidence and his job security?

This has all been done by this point and the fans have been engaged. Everything has gone wrong in the last 3 months and the shutters went up at the club. We have to get the news from you here or soundbites from the voice of reason. the club has either massively misunderstood the attitude of the fans or they have developed a staggering level of arrogance.

But we have in the past and fans have been informed. Interviews taking about kit release and season tickets. New initiatives etc with Miller. McCall and Kerr giving interviews about how training is going, what they are looking for. This all stopped when Hopkin came in, nothing from commercial, nothing about the playing side. just because no other club has done it means we should stop. what content over the last 200 pages suggests fans are happy and there doesn’t need to be some sort of engagement urgently? I can see the team being boo’d on to the park against Albion Rovers at this rate.

The club learned a valuable lesson a few years ago, they re-signed Shankland, Moffat and Moore and asked the fans to match the club’s ambitions. 2 years later they cut the budget and put season ticket prices up. As a result of the complaints , the chairman made more money available to, by then, Kerr. There has been no indication from the club that fans money is being invested in the playing squad. There has been no vision to buy in to, just…..give us your money and shut up.

The trial thing is nothing new, we had it in Roberts era where we had folk from America over who had won a competition somehow to have a trial at a European club. We did it with McCall where some players won a trial through some sports agency that was no doubt fleecing folk. Taking money from folk and then organising a training week at a club. I’m not saying that is happening here and I am Pleased that the club is leaving no stone unturned looking for talent but this feels like a shite experiment. This feels like we are trying to cobble together a band of misfits with something to prove in the hope it goes right. f**k that. We have gone through that before with Roberts, Conner and Shanks, Neil Watt…..the only stability we have had in recent years was under Reid and McCall and to a lesser extent Kerr. At the end of the season you have 10 players you wanted to keep and add 4-5 scouted players from clubs round about us plus loans. Right now, we have a squad of players that none of us would shed a tear over if they left and 4 signings made from clubs that were glad to see the back of them and we play our first game in 3 weeks time.

So we have gone from signing young, hungry players with a point to prove to having agents showcase free transfers to us. We have gone from a core squad, losing some quality every summer and replacing it to having a squad left of players we don't really want and the only quality we have went to Dundee. We have gone from a club that promotes young talent and an attractive club for young talent to come to, To a team that is looking at jobbers from England. The surprise is, it all happened in two years. What the f**k is going on

We'll get through the group stage of the cup, Beat Kilmarnock and then lose the next 8 games and he'll survive until February based on.....we started well.

Every step, before it happens now you think....I hope this doesn't happen, he surely won't do that. Its like he is reading this forum and thinking,.......McGinty you say? I'll give him a phone, playing long balls you don't like? f**k you, I'll play them regardless of who is up front.

If he wanted Todorov and Todorov wanted to leave Inverness then a deal could have been done on the 1st of May. for a deal to be all but signed and then he moved to another club the day before pre-season starts is a riddy. this is like when there was a shuffle of players a few seasons ago and we were in for Shankland, McHugh and one other and ended up with El Alagui. If your not fast you are last.

All the players that we could have signed, based on previous form at this level or above are now signed by teams round about us because they did business early. McManus signs for a club and the following day they sign a player we were apparently on the verge of signing. Their manager has been in the door a matter of a few weeks and has been managing in the league less time than Hopkin. We have known for a good couple of months that we were not going to have Smith, Zanatta or McCowan this year, we were going to have a 36 year old Moffat and potentially a semi-fit, semi-interested Walsh and a mediocre Todd. We should have players singled out with deals before the end of the season, players that we know are up to it and don’t need to invite them to preseason to take a look at them. We have signed 3 players from Morton, 2 of them would have struggled to get full time deals elsewhere in Scotland and a player that did well at a club almost relegated from the league below us. none of this has put my mind at ease that Hopkin isn’t making the same mistakes he made at Morton in a bizarre attempt to prove it works. the longer this goes on, the longer we are going to struggle to sign players the more money we will have to pay and the less quality will be available. Bearing in mind Brexit and Covid, the pool we can sign from is a lot smaller. There is no evidence that Hopkin, who has had a longer holiday than Judith Chalmers this year has been actively looking at signing players up until the last week. the club press hasn’t helped that, apart from asking for season ticket renewals they have been silent.

The evidence I have seen so far. Knowing in February we needed a rebuild, offering deals to players who almost to a man rejected them. being about a month behind other clubs in the league in terms of recruitment leaving us looking at English or Irish based players. Which will lead to us having to pay over the odds to tempt them to Scotland.

I don’t think it’s the fact we didn’t sign Todorov, it’s the concern that Hopkin has no plan or clue. Signing Todorov was a move in the right direction and it looks like he’s fucked it.

I get the impression that a plan B has only occurred to them when they saw he’d fucked off to Dunfermline this afternoon

I’m not keen on pinning hopes on Burnley youths like they are going to come up and rip up the championship. If they have decent players not on the cusp of the first team, I’m sure they could go to league one clubs in England. We could most likely be on almost a tier 3 of loans from them. unless we are going to pay a fee for players, we will be looking at frees, domestic and all likely players that are proven at this level or higher are gone so we are heading in to the unknown and will be becoming desperate in the next 2 weeks

So Todorov’s buggered off…..Hopkin has been on his holidays for 3 weeks and we start pre-season with about 6 players, none of them goalkeepers I’m getting affy nervous now that this is turning in to a fucking farce and we are walking in to it. This isn’t a new manager walking in to a club 3 weeks before the season starts, Hopkin has been in the job since February and it is now June. All credible Scottish based players are now tied up and we are now starting from page one? what the f**k is going on?

It’ll be announced on Sky, the BBC and the voice of reason hours before the club put out an imminent

Christmas fixtures look better this year, swap Raith for Morton and it would be better obviously but all easily accessible games, couple of home games as well and a real New Years derby for the first time in ages.

I’m trying to remember the game where a player got knocked out, Maybe Trouten(?) and the Ambulance folk walked on at a saunter while the crowd were screaming at them to get a move on

Cuthbert kneeing Chris Smith in the face by accident and Kenny Deuchar removing his tongue from his throat as well.

There was someone else, can’t remember his name, decided to become the fans representative at the club when maybe Sandy Louden or Donny McIntyre was chairman. Was invited to a couple of board meetings to be a voice for the fans. He started standing on the side terrace wearing a suit and trench coat, like Somerset Bob seemed to disappear up his own arse.

I like AVFTT, some of the video packages they do are brilliant, the one on Eriskay FC in particular. They treat lower leagues football in a non-patronising way. They also get stuck in occasionally, with ex-pro's you tend to get cronyism and they will not say a bad word against one of their own, or like Scottish sports journalism, afraid that if they say a Rangers/Celtic player is poor, they wont get any more interviews or exclusives from that club. The open goal podcast can be guilty of that. My only criticism is that sometimes a couple of them think their opinion actually matters and what they are saying is profound and important. You are 4(5) guys talking shite about football in an entertaining way and that is the charm of the show. It reminds me a bit like Somerset Bob

I have always worked for large companies, my last job involved a lot of travelling and I became obsessed with levels on loyalty programs, I was platinum with KLM and BA, the Marriot and the Hilton, I saw my boss about once a month when he signed my expenses and I was loving what I was doing, totally consumed in my work, on call 24/7 and doing 70-80 hour weeks. They still made me redundant. I started a new job closer to home, doing the same job but office based, for more money and better conditions than I had before but I absolutely hate it. All my immediate management are between 30 and 40, They are obsessed with their personal brand. We have an internal social media that I have no interest in, some people have video introductions on their page, professionally produced. A cross between Linkedin and Facebook. My review last year, my manager made more of the fact my profile was blank than any of my actual work. No one seems interested in work and things have gone backwards in the last few years. I stopped doing anything meaningful and no one seems to have noticed, I am on several projects that are going nowhere and no one seems to care about so my job is now about 6 hours of calls a week and the rest of the time I spend reading books and keeping my status active. I had a conversation with one of my mates a few weeks ago, he has made a fair amount from Bitcoin and retired himself at 40, he asked what I wanted to do, what my dream job would be? honestly, I've given up on work, you are just a number, if you dropped dead today, they wouldn't miss a beat and you would be forgotten in a month. They don't want to employ you as much as you don't want to be employed by them. They pay you money to do it because they have to and you do it because you need it.

@Finlay21 if the new home kit is bespoke, will it be the same situation as last seasons away kit, a one and done only available on pre-order? it’s not fair on you having to answer these questions all the time but no one else is telling us anything.

I don’t see much of it as I don’t drink much craft beer at all, Bellfield Bohemian Pilsner is about the only one I have drank more than once. I’m sure no company wants to look like a b*****d employer. The company I work for have a local leadership program for woman and an LGBTQIA focus person on-site. These people have no budget or authority and only send out emails asking people to update their auto signature with the pride flag company logo and things like that. From an outsiders point of view, the company supports women in leadership and the LGBTQIA community. If a company can do the absolute minimum for its employees, it will.